


SG-7 in Kalshek'tak: Black as Ebony

by MrProphet



Series: Stargate SG-7 - Season 1 [8]
Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-26 21:43:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10795347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet





	SG-7 in Kalshek'tak: Black as Ebony

_Stargate Command_

Lieutenant Alexa Rasputin sat in her quarters, reading _Crime and Punishment_.

She was waiting, stoically, for her court martial. She was sure that there would be one, having lied to every commanding officer that she had ever served under by concealing her sister's survival as a Goa'uld host. Far worse, that meant that she had deliberately kept secret the fact that the psychic bond which had always existed between the twins continued to link Alexa and the Goa'uld Danica. If being a walking security risk while working in a succession of high-security jobs was not a court martial offence, then hiding the fact that you were must surely be.

She had lied first to General Vukoticha, who had given her all to protect Alexa after her disastrous involvement with the Russian Stargate programme. She had then lied to General O'Neill, who had made an exception to his own inflexible rule by appointing a Russian to one of his premier SG units. Perhaps worst of all, she had lied to Lieutenant-Colonel Ferretti, who had accepted a stranger into his tight-knit team and trusted her when her abilities were alien to all of his considerable experience. She felt terrible and she almost looked forward to the court martial and the end to all of the deception.

Alexa had not been confined to her quarters, but she had acted as such for the seven days since she had returned from P9Z-138. She emerged only at odd hours, to take her dinner in the commissary when she knew that none of her team mates would be around. She had not been above ground, despite the fact that her psychic hypersensitivity had been blunted by Danica's soothing touch. She had avoided the training areas as well, taking basic exercise in her room rather than socialising in the least way with the people that she had betrayed.

A knock at the door stirred Alexa from her reading. Having come to think of herself as a prisoner, she was surprised at such a courtesy.

"Come in!" she called.

The door opened, but the man outside did not enter.

Alexa set down her book and stood up. "Colonel," she said, quietly.

"Lieutenant Rasputin," Ferretti replied, softly.

"Is it time, then, Sir? Am I to be arrested now?"

Ferretti shook his head. "There isn't going to be a court martial, Lieutenant," he said. "I've spent the last week in conference with Generals Vukoticha and O'Neill and Colonel Chekhov and we have decided that this is best handled as an internal disciplinary matter."

Alexa groped for something to say. "Sir?" she managed at last.

"No court martial," Ferretti said again. "You'll be returned to active duty, effective immediately. We brief at eleven-hundred for a jaunt to another Scourge-tainted hellhole."

"Yes, Sir," Alexa gasped, delighted. "I...Thank you..."

"Don't!" Ferretti interrupted. "Don't thank me, Lieutenant; I'm not doing you any favours. The simple fact is that you are irreplaceable; neither the Air Force nor the Special Directorate has anyone with half your abilities. But you...You have betrayed the trust of _everyone_ involved in the Stargate Program," he accused. "If there were anyone else to fill your shoes, we'd hang you out to dry."

Alexa often wished that she could shut down her psychic abilities. Every time she read the lechery behind a sweet smile or felt the cool insincerity of a kind word; whenever she caught a glimpse of envy in the eyes of a friend. Now, she wished it more than ever as she sensed the true accusation behind Ferretti's words: That she had betrayed _him_.

"You will be treated as a civilian consultant," Ferretti went on, stiffly. "You will carry light armament and have only limited access to sensitive information. You will _not_ be told the coordinates of our mission worlds and you will neither carry a GDO nor be given an IDC."

"I...I see," Alexa said, and she did. Under those conditions, she would be unable to return to Earth alone; she was being told that the SGC would allow her to die before trusting her with the safety of her world again.

The worst of it was that Colonel Ferretti was not even angry with her. He was hurt; wounded to the core and disguising his vulnerability with a display of rage. He also felt like a fool for ever having trusted and cared about her, but he was not angry; he pitied her.

Alexa sensed all of this and the knowledge was like a boot, grinding her spirit into the mud. She had emerged from her ordeal with Byelobog a shattered woman, doubting everything from her worth to her own identity. Her acceptance into SG-7 – swift, if intensely painful – had done much to restore her confidence. Without that trust and, specifically, without Ferretti's trust, her doubts returned in force.

"I'll see you in the briefing room at eleven-hundred," Ferretti growled.

"Sir," she agreed, her eyes fixed on the floor.

*

_P96-H18_

Alexa had been prepared and quite willing to go through the Stargate first, viewing herself rather like a canary in a cage. As it was, Ferretti decided that she would go _last_. It might have been better for her to lead; at the Gate site, all seemed quiet, but as she emerged from the event horizon, Alexa felt a wall of hate so tangible that it was almost suffocating; it took her breath away. "Ambush," she gasped. She sucked in a deep breath. "Sir! Ambush!"

The Stargate lay in the base of a shallow, bowl-shaped valley, its floor broken by ravines and low cliffs. A dense, cactus-scrub covered the rough terrain, all save a narrow, raised track which led up to the Scourge temple. The temple itself – according to UAV surveys – was almost intact, yet there were no bio-transmissions; the hatred and anger that she sensed came from a far more human source.

"Down!" Alexa screamed. She hurled herself against Pearson – who was nearest to her – and thrust him off the path, into the scrub. He vanished quite suddenly from her field of vision and a moment later she fell after him. The ground dropped sharply away, the slope hidden by the vegetation, and they toppled down to the bottom of a deep gully. Cactus spines scraped harmlessly against Alexa's Omega suit. As they fell, she was acutely aware of the pack on Pearson's back; the pack which contained the experimental disruptor bomb which they were to test on the dormant Scourge temple. The disruptor field should have no effect on naturally living tissue, but the priming charge was a naquadah-fuelled, field-effect blast equivalent to about a tonne of TNT; small potatoes by the standards of modern explosives, but more than enough to eradicate a couple of squishy humans.

Behind and above them, the cacti exploded into flames, as Lieutenant Roberts laid down suppressing fire with his plasma lance. There _was_ a gap in the inferno and Alexa stared at that opening, willing Roberts, Merlyn and Ferretti to appear. Nobody followed. The high-pitched whine of zat blasts filled the air.

Pearson scrambled to his feet. "Move, Lieutenant."

"But the others..."

"We can't help them if we get caught," Pearson told her. "There were no staff blasts, which means the ambush was aiming to take prisoners," he added in explanation. "If we loop around we can come back to the path and ambush _them_ when they take their prisoners up to the temple."

"What if they're not _in_ the temple?" Alexa demanded.

Pearson gave a dry chuckle. "Those were Jaffa weapons," he reminded her. "The Goa'uld _always_ set up in the temple. Which does rather beg the question..."

"Have they woken up The Scourge?" Alexa agreed. "Not that I can sense, but you never know. I've got a bad feeling about this. That sensation...The hatred that warned me of the ambush."

"What about it?"

"It's hard to tell with my sensitivity reduced, but I'm sure I've felt it before."

 

Alexa and Pearson picked their way carefully through the scrub, trying to leave as little trace of their passage as possible. It was easy enough to do; the ground was rocky and the scrub looked as though a machete would not have made much impression on it. Twigs and cacti were bent and crushed beneath their feet, but sprang back up again once they were passed.

"We're going up," Pearson observed. "I think we're higher than the path by now."

"Well, the path is at the bottom of the valley," Alexa reminded him.

"We came down about fifteen feet in the first case," Pearson mused, "but we've come back around towards the path and we're still going up."

Walking about three feet ahead, Alexa pushed aside a tough, fernlike plant and suddenly stopped. "I think I know why we've been going up so high," she said. She stepped back and lowered herself onto her stomach. "We're at the top of a cliff overlooking the path," she explained.

Pearson lay down as well and they both shuffled forward to the ridge. They were indeed about thirty feet above the base of the valley and several hundred yards from the path. They had clearly made good time, because a squad of Jaffa were just coming into view below them, carrying two limp bodies. Their armour was jet black.

"Skull Guards," Alexa sighed. " _That_ 's why The Scourge is still dormant; there are kal'shek'tak in that temple, suppressing the Mind."

"Oh, wacko," Pearson muttered. "I think this ridge meets the path further up; if we hurry..."

"Wait," Alexa interrupted. "Look."

Down on the path, the lead Jaffa had stopped. He crouched down and examined something in his path.

"Tripwire," Pearson said.

"Roberts," Alexa realised.

Pearson shook his head. "If Roberts set a tripwire, the Jaffa wouldn't have found it," he assured her.

"Unless..."

"...he wanted them to."

The crack of an explosion echoed across the valley and the first two Jaffa fell, struck by a hail of shot from a Claymore mine. The Jaffa carrying the prisoners set them down. The others knelt and levelled their staff weapons, blasting wildly into the scrub. Another blast and another Jaffa was down. The squad moved forward and fired at the new threat, then at a third, and as a fourth blast took their attention to a new quarter and drew them still further from their prisoners, a slim figure in an Omega suit materialised from the scrub behind them.

Even Roberts could not have tackled quite so many Jaffa single-handed. Instead, he seized Lieutenant-Colonel Ferretti by the shoulders and dragged him off the path. Alexa half-expected him to come back for Merlyn, but she knew – and clearly he realised as well – that he could not carry even one unconscious comrade away fast enough to evade the enemy.

Instead, Roberts hurried back and lay down in Ferretti's place. When the Jaffa were at last satisfied that the enemy was either dead or gone, they came back and picked up two unconscious figures in Omega suits, never noticing that one was slightly taller than he had been.

"Ambush the rest of the Jaffa or find Colonel Ferretti, Lieutenant?" Pearson asked.

"The Colonel," Alexa replied, without hesitation. "Roberts is doing his thing and I'd hate to get in his way."

*

Roberts let his limbs go loose and kept his eyes shut; not tight shut, just closed, as though in sleep or unconsciousness. The Jaffa gave no sign that they had realised they were carrying a different man, but he did not want to tip them off to his state of consciousness; that might cause them to feel he needed to be knocked out again. His breathing remained slow and by an effort of will he was able to lull his heart's beating into a steady, regular rhythm. Feigning unconsciousness was difficult, but Roberts was able to simulate death accurately enough to fool a weary medical intern; a few Jaffa should not present too much of a problem.

He felt the shadow fall across him as he was carried through a gate, then the sunlight was back as they passed into a courtyard. After about half a mile they passed once more into shade and then the stretcher was set down on the ground, but the guards did not go far enough for Roberts to be able to risk moving.

"Baphomet!"

Roberts suppressed a shudder at the strident cry. There was no doubt in his mind that the voice – harsh, echoing, yet still somehow sensual – belonged to Djanka, the Goa'uld Queen whom the Skull Guards had served since the death of her husband, Czernobog. Djanka was a vampire, her host a queen of the kalshek'tak race, which made her even more deadly than most Goa'uld Queens.

"My Lady," one of the Jaffa replied.

"These two should not be placed in the cells, Baphomet," Djanka purred. "Have them brought to the interrogation chambers; the torturers are to find out what, if anything, they know about the devices in the temple...or in the station," she added, thoughtfully. "This armour..."

"As you say, My Lady," Baphomet agreed; he sounded almost afraid.

Djanka chuckled. "They are only human, my darling Jaffa. Their minds are to be drained of all useful information, and then their bodies can be used to fuel my new weapons."

That seemed to go down better with the First Prime. "Yes, My Lady," he said.

*

Alexa bent over the still form of her commanding officer. She laid a hand on his forehead and felt his mind swimming slowly back towards consciousness. "Sir?" she called, softly. "Colonel Ferretti?"

Ferretti groaned, softly. "Either last night was a really good night...or a really _bad_ one."

Alexa rolled back on her heels and withdrew her hand. "Well, it wasn't good," she admitted.

"And it wasn't last night," Pearson added.

It took a few minutes more for Ferretti to gather his wits enough for Alexa and Pearson to brief him.

"Basically, Sir, Djanka has Roberts and Merlyn in the temple and the Stargate is heavily guarded," Alexa explained. "The kalshek'tak seem to be creating a psychic gestalt to keep the Scourge presence suppressed; we have no way of knowing how long they have been here and how close they are to gaining control of The Scourge."

"Or vice versa," Pearson chipped in.

"Or vice versa," Alexa agreed.

Ferretti sighed, deeply. "Alright," he said. "Help me up and we'll go and have a snoop around this temple."

 

The temple sat over the ridge, hidden from the view of anyone standing below the valley's edge. The depleted team kept well away from the road and picked their way through the scrub towards the rim.

"I have a question," Ferretti noted. "If The Scourge is more ancient than the...Ancients, then why are there Ancient-built Stargates on infected worlds?"

"It's possible that the Ancients just never realised," Pearson suggested. "The Scourge may have been buried when they came; may even have still been buried when they left. It's hard to tell when any given temple might have last gone dormant."

"There is another possibility," Alexa added, grimly.

"Why do I get the feeling I'm going to like this one less?" Ferretti wondered aloud.

"We know that the Ancients possessed a high degree of parapsychological ability," Alexa went on, "Including healing powers. If they were strongly psychic then they may have been defenceless before the onslaught of The Scourge's mental control. You know how vulnerable I am, even with my limited abilities."

They fell silent, partly in order to absorb the prospect of facing an enemy who might have defeated the Ancients without needing to fire a shot and partly because they had reached the top of the ridge. They lowered themselves carefully onto their bellies, then crawled forward to look down on the temple.

"It's a bold architectural statement," Ferretti declared.

"No wonder the UAV didn't spot the Goa'uld presence," Pearson said.

The outer walls of the original Scourge temple still stood, forming the perimeter of a circular compound more than a mile across. The walls of the main structure – the vast psychic transmitter which topped the pit – had long since fallen in, but the domed roof survived, supported from the centre by the thick column which carried the energy conduits and biotransmission channels connecting the Mind to the array. Beneath this sinister umbrella, structures of unmistakably Goa'uld design clustered around the pillar, almost completely hidden from air and space reconnaissance.

"I'll say this for them," Ferretti allowed. "They build fast."

Alexa had her field glasses to her eyes and was surveying the rear of the compound. "There is something else, Colonel," she said. "On the far side of the compound."

Ferretti reached for his own glasses. "Where exactly?"

"In the side of the hill which rises to the north-east; beneath the overhang, almost hidden in shadow."

Ferretti looked. For a moment, all he could see were shadows, but slowly he became able to make out the shapes of Jaffa moving too-and-fro, and stray flickers of sunlight glittered on metal deep within the cleft.

"Interesting," he agreed, "although for the moment not _very_ interesting. At least not until we get our people back. What do you make of the defences," he asked.

"Statics built in to most of the outer perimeter," Pearson replied. "There aren't a great many guards, but there are enough to make our lives difficult."

"There are many kalshek'tak," Alexa added. "I can feel them now, but their powers are focused on The Scourge. The Mind remains dormant, but it is stirring. The very act of keeping it sedated has triggered a response and it is trying to wake."

"Just what we need," Ferretti grumbled.

"There is also a remote viewer, like the one Djanka had spying out my Danica's castle," Alexa noted. "I can feel her mind, searching, always searching, but she is not looking for us."

"Clearly, Djanka doesn't consider us much of a threat," Ferretti said, acidly.

"And with good reason," Pearson assured him. "We'd need a full assault group, with UAVs _and_ armour to take those defences head on."

"It is more than that," Alexa said. "It isn't just that she is not looking for us; the Seer's attention seems to be focused elsewhere. On...whatever it is that is in that cave. That was how I noticed it in the first place," she admitted. "Whatever it is, it is important."

"But not so heavily-guarded as the temple," Pearson noted. "And...Look to the right; the path which leads around to the cave splits and one fork goes steeply up the cliff face. It doesn't seem to be in use by the Jaffa, but I'd bet it leads around to another entrance."

"You're sure?" Ferretti asked, doubtfully.

"Bet my life on it," Pearson assured him.

"Right," Ferretti decided. "Well if Djanka wants it, I want me to have it instead of her."

"She also wants The Scourge," Alexa observed, dryly.

"Then I either want me to have it, or I want to blow it up, depending on how evil it turns out to be. Either way, if we steal it _or_ detonate it, with any luck we'll draw Djanka's attention – and her troops – away from the main compound and we can get Roberts and Merlyn out."

*

Roberts lay still, waiting for Djanka and her First Prime to move away and leave the Jaffa to lift up the stretchers again. He had been obliged to leave most of his weapons behind when he replaced Colonel Ferretti on the stretcher and there were still too many enemies present for him to handle hand-to-hand. Unfortunately, they seemed to be in no hurry to go.

"I have not seen such armour before," Baphomet observed.

"They are the Tau'ri who allied themselves with the White Bitch to oppose me," Djanka hissed; Roberts guessed that she must mean Danica.

"The armour is not like that of the other Tau'ri I have fought."

"No," Djanka mused.

Roberts heard the Queen pace closer to him.

"It is like..." She broke off, as though she had said too much already. There was a fear in her tone and no doubt she feared to show any more of that to an underling. "They are not like other Tau'ri. They are powerful and cunning." As she spoke the last word, she moved rapidly towards Roberts and drove a booted foot hard into his side; even through the armour of his Omega suit, Roberts felt the impact and the force of the blow lifted him off his stretcher and threw him hard against a wall.

Roberts' eyes, watering from the pain, snapped open and he rolled awkwardly to his feet. That was how he caught his first sight of Djanka, the vampire Queen.

In the pale reflected light which found its way underneath the broken crest of the temple's dome, Djanka's white skin seemed to glow. She wore a long, black gown with a plunging neckline, tightly belted at the waist and slit to the hips on both sides over black, leather pants; the Goth princess theme of the ensemble was spoiled only by the addition of a pair of heavy, Jaffa combat boots. Her face was narrow and feral, with large, blood-red eyes and high, angular cheekbones. Her hair was long, black and loose. Her mouth hung slightly open and jagged, white teeth showed behind the blood red lips.

Roberts drew his knife and lunged at Djanka. She moved with inhuman speed and caught his wrist, twisting it around so that he dropped the knife. She tried to bend his arm back far enough to force him to his knees, but Roberts let his body turn with the wrist and snapped a kick at Djanka's kneecap. Apparently, kalshek'tak kneecaps were as vulnerable as those of humans and the Queen released Roberts with a grunt of pain; she was not shaken as a human might be, however, and immediately responded with a swift punch to the head that made Roberts' teeth rattle in his skull.

Roberts attacked with all the skill at his command, but Djanka was too fast, too strong, and she had millennia of experience over him. He might be the finest hand-to-hand fighter in the SGC, but she was a lethal predator with a Goa'uld's drive to conquer. More than that, however, she hardly seemed to feel pain, even when Roberts struck her. She was like a woman possessed, insensitive to injury beyond even the norm for a Goa'uld. He pressed her hard, but she weathered the blows and struck back with enough force to knock Roberts off his feet. Before he could recover, his arms were seized by two Jaffa.

Djanka hastily gathered her composure and tried – with mixed success – to appear as though subduing Roberts had barely been an effort for her. "Pathetic," she sneered. "It sickens me that my son should die such an ignominious death as to be slain by _you_." She drew herself up and glowered at him, her gaze boring into his with an almost palpable force. "Kneel before me now and beg my forgiveness for your crime."

Pressure built behind Roberts' eyes until it felt as though his head would explode. His legs wobbled, as though from extreme fatigue, but although he felt a powerful urge to drop to his knees he fought against it. In truth, it seemed to him that his resistance was a futile endeavour; for a moment it brought nothing but a searing pain, but that passed and the pressure eased. His limbs still felt like lead, but he was able to keep his feet.

"Kneel!" Djanka repeated.

"Never," Roberts gasped. It was an effort for him to speak, but he succeeded in making his voice sound almost natural.

"You will submit!" Djanka insisted. Her eyes widened, the pupils dilated and her blood-red irises bloated to fill the whites completely. "You _must_ submit!"

*

Ferretti was halfway up the ridge path which led up beside the cave when Alexa stumbled and almost fell.

"Watch your step!" Ferretti hissed in an impatient whisper. "We're almost on top of..." He glanced over his shoulder and stopped in the middle of his tirade.

Alexa was still on one knee; behind her faceplate, her skin was pale and flushed and she was panting for breath. Ferretti turned, took Alexa's hand and touched the controls on her wrist, letting a little of the suit's stored oxygen enrich the air that was being filtered through her respirator.

"What's wrong, Lieutenant?" he asked.

"The Scourge," she gasped. "Stirring. Something has distracted the gestalt; its power is being redirected and the Mind is waking."

Ferretti felt a chill. "Redirected?"

*

Roberts felt the power directed against him double and redouble. His mental defences held for a moment, then collapsed. His vision spun and went black; as he passed out, he saw Djanka lunge towards him.

*

Alexa closed her eyes and screwed up her face in concentration for several minutes, and slowly, the struggle on her face lessened. "Well, that was easier than it used to be," she sighed.

"Before you made contact with your sister again?" Ferretti asked.

"Before she repaired my defences," Alexa replied, evasively. "I am no longer in direct contact with her," she insisted.

Ferretti waved away her protests, as though it were of no concern, although it might be closer to the truth that he did not want to hear because if he did not hear, he could not be lied to. "So what happened?" he asked.

" _Something_ distracted the attention of the kalshek'tak gestalt," Alexa explained. "The psychic focus turned the power of the gestalt on something other than The Scourge, weakening the sedating force and allowing the Mind to rouse itself, momentarily."

"Turned it on _what_ though?" Ferretti wondered.

Alexa shivered. "I would rather not think."

"Sir," Pearson said.

"Yes, Sergeant?"

"Mission plus two," Pearson reported, meaning that they were two hours into the mission, the scheduled time for their first check in with the SGC.

"Will we have contact from here?" Ferretti asked.

"I still have the booster in my pack," Pearson assured him. He reached over his shoulder and drew out the portable signal relay.

Not for the first time, Ferretti could not help being awed by the organisation of Pearson's gear; even Merlyn had to take the pack off her back to find any given piece of equipment. With no lesser efficiency, Pearson snapped open the relay and planted it firmly on the ground.

Ferretti took out his radio and spoke into it. "Hello, Sierra-Golf-Charlie, this is SG-7-niner."

" _Seven-niner, this is Sierra-Golf-Charlie_ ," the familiar voice of General O'Neill replied. " _Go ahead._ "

"SGC; we have hostile contact," Ferretti admitted. "Two and three are compromised and we can confirm Scourge activity, in addition to a Goa'uld presence."

" _Understood, SG-7. Do you require assistance?_ "

Ferretti opened his mouth to reply, but Pearson caught his eye. "Stand by, SGC." Ferretti closed the channel. "Pearson?"

"This signal is way too strong, Sir," Pearson explained. "They must have an energy field across the mouth of the wormhole, acting like an iris."

Ferretti nodded his understanding, and then went back to the comms. "Negative, SGC," he sighed. "Disembarkation zone is severely compromised; access may be denied. We will reconnoitre and attempt to neutralise the threat. Failing that, we'll try to restore access and make contact again."

There was a long pause and Ferretti could picture the General's frown. " _Understood_ ," O'Neill said at last. " _Look sharp out there and be sure and bring our people back._ "

"Will do," Ferretti confirmed.

" _SGC out_."

Ferretti sighed. "So, we're on our own. Again. Anyone else starting to feel a little isolated?"

Pearson raised his hand.

"I always feel that way," Alexa added, with false cheer.

"Lucky you," Ferretti drawled. "At least one of us should be feeling right at home."

*

Merlyn was in a steeply sloping tunnel, a narrow, almost vertical chimney carved through the stone by a rivulet of water. The walls were smooth and slick, the air was warm and heavy with humidity; from below her, Merlyn could smell the stench of decay. She missed the reassuring weight of her weapons almost at once and a moment later realised that her Omega suit was also gone; she wore only her fatigue pants and a tank-top. She reached to her throat; her tags were missing, but the plain, silver cross still hung around her neck. Merlyn paused, trying to get her bearings; was she trying to go up, or down? She could not seem to remember.

In the shadows below her, something moved. She could see nothing, but she heard the low scrape of something large slithering over stone. She crouched as still as she could make herself in the closeness of the chimney and waited for the sound to move away. At last there was silence, except for the thudding of her heart.

Her mind made up, Merlyn began to climb. Her hands slipped on the wet rock, but by wedging her body across the shaft as she groped for handholds, she was able to make her way slowly upwards.

She had not gone more than a dozen feet when the sound came again; the same, dreadful slithering, but closer now. Whatever it was, it was in the chimney with her, and sliding swiftly towards her. The stench grew stronger. She began to climb faster, slipping and stumbling, always on the brink of falling back down towards... _it_.

Merlyn risked a glance downwards; she had a momentary image of flailing tendrils and rasping, ripping teeth, grinding together in a jawless, slavering maw. She looked away, but fear gripped her limbs and her arms would not move. By sheer effort of will, she managed to reach up for the next handhold, but it was like trying to force her way through quicksand.

The slithering sound rose up, filling the foetid air around her and she recognised the stinking heat for the breath of the creature, thick with rotting meat. She put out her hand and grasped the wall of the shaft, but the stone was hot and gave beneath her fingers. This was no stone chimney, but the fleshy tunnel of a monstrous throat.

Tentacles lashed around her leg and Merlyn screamed.

 

Merlyn woke with a shudder. The air around her _was_ humid, but it was only warm, not hot, and there was no stench of decay. The surface that she lay on was smooth and yielding and she started up, but it was only the red, leather covering of an opulent couch. She still wore her Omega suit, although not her helmet.

The last remnants of the nightmare cleared from her mind and Merlyn recognised her surroundings. She was in a room in a Goa'uld palace of standardised design – although the architect had clearly preferred black and silver to red and gold – and more-than-usually extravagant furnishing. As well as the couch there were velvet wall hangings, three elegantly carved wooden chairs, two dressers, a matching pair of roll-top desks and a magnificent four-poster bed. Merlyn had the impression that the host to whom she was an unwilling guest had been obliged to move to this dwelling from somewhere rather larger, but had refused to give up any of the furniture.

A jug of water stood on one of the dressers. Merlyn's head was pounding and she took the chance of the water being drugged. She knew that she had been out for a long time, but her body was still protesting from the zat blast that had put her under. She moved to the bed, intending to lie down, but found it occupied.

"Roberts," she whispered, horrified.

The lieutenant lay on the bed, unconscious. He too still wore his Omega suit, but the gloves and helmet had been removed with such violence that the seals had torn and the fastenings were bent out of shape. His skin was very pale and it was easy to see why; his face was a mass of bruises and there was a ragged wound on his throat, partially scabbed over, but still oozing a slow stream of blood onto the red, silk coverlet.

Merlyn acted quickly. She could see that Roberts was far gone into shock and that he was in real danger of death. She fetched the water and washed the wound, then improvised a bandage from a pillowcase. She cradled his head, damped a second pillowcase and mopped his brow. Then she squeezed a little water onto his lips.

Roberts gave a soft moan and licked his lips.

Merlyn dribbled a little more water onto his mouth. "You are one tough customer, Roberts," she told him, gratefully.

A soft chuckle drew Merlyn's attention to the door of the room. The door had slid open with barely a sound and now a tall, pale-skinned figure leaned insouciantly on the doorframe, watching Merlyn with blood-red eyes.

"You must be Djanka," Merlyn realised, trying not to sound afraid. "Nice dress," she added.

Djanka gave a cold smile and pushed herself gently away from the frame and straightened the dress. "I wish I could say the same for your...apparel, but I am sure that we can find something more flattering for you." She stalked towards the bed, moving with a calculated, predatory grace. "How is the young man?"

"He'll live," Merlyn replied, frostily. "He always does."

Djanka licked her lips. "He certainly has strength, and there is always savour in a killer's blood. He is an excellent find, and yet not the finest prize of this day." Djanka reached the bedside and stood over Merlyn. Her hand flicked out and she ran the sharp nail of her index finger down Merlyn's cheek. "I sense real _power_ in you," she purred. "You are the sorceress, yes?"

"No," Merlyn answered, without thinking. She was always reluctant to consider her ability to use the phonic constructs of the pre-Ancient cultures as ‘magic', but it was never a smart idea to directly contradict a Goa'uld in a superior position.

Djanka slapped Merlyn across the face; it was a hard, stinging blow, although Merlyn doubted it was struck with even half of the kalshek'tak's strength. "You are the sorceress," she pronounced. "My seers confirm it. I have plans for you, my beauty."

Merlyn swallowed hard. "So am I to become a vampire as well?" she demanded.

Djanka gave a laugh like icicles piercing cold flesh. "Foolishness," she sneered. "An idiotic superstition, stemming from a confusion of host and symbiote. There is only one way to make a new kalshek'tak and you could not help me with that; although your comrade might."

Merlyn closed her eyes and looked away to hide her expression of distaste. This hardly seemed the time to discuss morality with a megalomaniac.

"Yanis!" Djanka snapped.

Merlyn did not know how to respond to that, but it seemed not to be directed at her. After a few moments, another kalshek'tak entered the room. There was some resemblance between the newcomer and Djanka's host, but although from her face Merlyn guessed the newcomer to be a woman, this one had an androgynous figure, in stark contrast to Djanka's voluptuous curves.

"Yes, My Queen?" the newcomer purred. Her voice was a hard rasp and the characteristic resonance of the Goa'uld actually softened it into something more sensual.

"I will take the woman with me," Djanka announced. "I wish to question her myself. I leave the other one in your care, Yanis."

Yanis approached the bed with a fluid, boneless gait and gazed down at Roberts' still form. "Thank you, My Queen," she said.

Djanka gave a tight smile. "This is my daughter, the Princess Yanis," she told Merlyn. "Daughter of my true body housed in the kalshek'tak flesh of my host's child. She will rip every shred of useful information from your comrade's mind. She has quite a gift for these matters. His fate when this is done will be up to you."

"Of course it will," Merlyn sighed, with a roll of her eyes. "How could we possibly get through this little episode without my having to make an unpalatable choice?"

Djanka licked her lips and stroked the side of Merlyn's face again, this time with her thumbnail. "You have such lovely eyes," she said. "Not so fine as his," she admitted, "but they are lovely. If you provoke me, human, I may decide to add them to my collection. I have always found that even the most defiant of prisoners grow more biddable when robbed of their sight."

Merlyn swallowed hard.

"Now. You know, as well as any mortal can do, what it is that is concealed beneath this fortress. You know also that the weapons require living creatures to power them. Your comrade is very strong; he would supply so _much_ power."

"No!"

"If you cooperate – and restrain your unfortunate urge to pass comment on your betters or to interrupt them when they are speaking – then I will _not_ place him in the machine. Instead, once we know all that he knows, he will be permitted to live as Yanis' pet. _I_ will take his eyes, of course, but I am confident that he will learn to enjoy such a life; I doubt the same could be said of the alternative."

Merlyn shuddered, but restrained herself from comment.

"Come, human," Djanka chuckled. "Attend me; we shall leave Yanis to tend your comrade."

"He is weak; he could still die," Merlyn protested.

"Yanis will see to it," Djanka assured her. "He will be strong before he is broken."

"The screams of a whole man are so much more satisfying," Yanis crooned, ecstatically. She turned to look at her mother. "You will not take his eyes until I am done with him?" she asked, concerned.

Djanka smiled, indulgently. "When you are ready, _you_ may take his eyes and bring them to me," she promised. "Come human."

Merlyn fixed her eyes on her feet and followed the Queen.

*

"Let's take the other path, he said," Ferretti muttered. "There must be a back door, he said."

"Well, there is an _entrance_ ," Pearson insisted.

"There's a way in," Ferretti replied, "not an entrance; there's a difference. I've made it this far through life without crawling through any air ducts and I don't see any particular reason to start now."

"It isn't an air duct," Pearson assured him. "It's an elevator shaft."

Ferretti perked up. "So there's an elevator?"

Pearson shook his head. "I think that there was once a structure up here, above the main complex, with an elevator to reach it. The exposed structure was swept away, taking the elevator machinery with it, but the shaft remains. There is a ladder, however."

"Is it safe?" Alexa asked.

"Looks sound, Lieutenant," Pearson assured her. "You should probably go first, though; you're lighter than either the Colonel or I and you're carrying a lighter pack."

"And no weapons," Alexa noted. "Alright," she added, hastily, not wanting Ferretti to think that she was complaining of her treatment. "We need to keep going, though; the balance of psychic power in the temple is becoming unstable."

Ferretti nodded, reluctantly. "Right. Lead off, Lieutenant. Slow and careful."

The shaft was more than one hundred feet deep and it was a hard climb with full packs. The ladder ended a short distance above the bottom of the shaft, but there was a small service alcove at the foot of the ladder, into which the three of them could just about fit in order to rest themselves while they readied ropes and magnetic crampons for the final stage of the descent.

Ferretti ran a finger across the floor of the alcove. The finger of his Omega glove was white with dust when he lifted it before his face. "No-one has been here in decades," he noted. "We'll leave our packs here; no point lugging them around a Goa'uld base. Fetch out what you need."

They released the clasps which held the packs to the Omega suits' built-in harnesses and lowered them to the floor. They extracted vital equipment, such as Pearson's toolkit, then the sergeant arranged the packs safely at the back of the space. This left them unburdened and far more able to move stealthily around an enemy stronghold. Thus prepared, they swung out on their ropes and climbed down to the elevator outer doors.

Pearson levered open the door control panel and shone a torch into the circuitry.

"How's it look?" Alexa asked.

"Strangely familiar," Pearson replied.

"Purely from curiosity," Ferretti wondered, "what are our chances of getting through that door if there's no power anymore?"

"Pretty minimal," Pearson admitted. "We'd have to blast our way through."

"So much for subtlety," Ferretti muttered.

The panel chirruped happily in response to Pearson's attentions and the elevator door slid silently open. The room beyond was dark.

"Oh ye of little faith," Pearson chided.

Ferretti switched on his low-light filters and swung himself through the opening, into the room beyond. As soon as he found his feet, he drew the MPX from its holster and made a full turn to check every corner of the room. There was no-one there and seemingly had not been for some time. This chamber did not have the decades of dust that filled the elevator shaft, but the air was stale. Two rows of consoles took up the bulk of the floor space and a large, blank dish dominated the wall opposite the elevator. There was a door in one of the side walls.

"Looks like a control room," Ferretti whispered. "Pearson; come on down and have a look at this. Alexa, you and I are on watch."

His team mates slithered down the ropes and swung into the room. Pearson moved at once to examine the nearest console, while Ferretti led Alexa to the door. There was no sound beyond and when the door opened – at the touch of a simple control – the corridor beyond was as still and silent as the control room.

"Stay here," Ferretti told Alexa. "If you hear or sense anything, you close the door and let us know."

"Yes, Colonel," Alexa acknowledged.

Ferretti patted her on the shoulder and went back to Pearson. In a very short space of time, the sergeant had managed to reactivate the ancient console and even as Ferretti reached him, the dish began to glow and a flickering, holographic display materialised in front of it. The display did not actually _show_ anything, it merely flickered with static.

"That was quick."

"This is a little bit familiar," Pearson replied. "The technology is a little more primitive than that in the Black Tower, but unmistakably of the same provenance."

"The Shay?" Ferretti asked.

Pearson nodded. "Without Merlyn or Roberts I can't decipher the text, but I learned something of the basic systems architecture on Shayara and this is clearly designed along similar lines. I should be able to locate some basic functions such as..."

The static dissolved to reveal a three-dimensional image of a sprawling corridor system, built on three levels. The plan was surrounded by floating annotations.

"Where are we?" Ferretti asked.

"Bottom of the shaft," Pearson replied.

He pointed to the elevator shaft, which rose up out of the top of the system. At the bottom of the map and on the far side of the complex from the elevator, another vertical shaft ran downwards a short distance to a low dome.

"Aside from that bottom bit, we could be looking at the SGC," Ferretti noted.

Pearson pursed his lips, thoughtfully. "You may be pretty close to the mark, Sir," he noted. "Just going on the schematics, I think this is a research station."

"Researching what?"

"Whatever is under that dome," Pearson surmised.

Alexa glanced around. "Where is the dome?" she asked. "Relative to us, I mean."

"I'm guessing a little on the scale, but I'd say it was about..."

"A mile and a half to the north-west?" Alexa guessed.

"Ah."

Ferretti sighed. "The stupid colonel version?" he asked.

"We're in a hide," Pearson replied.

"What? Like for bird watching?"

"Yes," the sergeant agreed, "although in this case for Scourge watching."

Ferretti sighed. "It's always good to know that we're not the only race who reacts to apocalyptic threats by poking them with a stick." He pointed to one of the annotations. "That's not Shay, is it?"

"No, Sir," Pearson agreed. "It looks like the Goa'uld have made their own annotations. I can...sort-of read that; it is mostly technical notations and that's my thing, after all. It doesn't look as though they've done much more with the computers than access this plan. Most of the notations relate to their efforts to repair the power distribution systems. It looks as though they've rigged up a temporary lighting system through the corridors, but the computer encryption on the technical schematics has defeated them."

"Can you crack it?"

"Probably, but I couldn't read them if I did," Pearson admitted.

Ferretti shook his head. "Damn that Roberts; doesn't he realise how much more useful he is than me?"

"Look on the bright side," Pearson quipped. "If he did he'd be insufferable. Okay," he went on. "This is the armoury – I recognise ma'ash – and the...workshop, question mark."

"Whose question mark?" Ferretti asked.

"Theirs. I guess the Goa'uld aren't sure of these labels either."

"Why do they have a layout schematic that isn't connected to the technical schematics?" Alexa wondered aloud.

"You just worry about the corridor," Ferretti reminded her.

"Yes, Sir," Alexa replied, chastened.

Ferretti leaned over Pearson's console. "So why would they have a scheming layabout who...what she said?"

"I think it's just a map," Pearson replied. "Just a way to find your way from A to B. Hang on, though; if we're _very_ lucky..." He worked a few more controls and the image flickered for a moment. When it stabilised, there were small, red dots moving through the holographic passageways.

"A security scanner," Ferretti realised. "Outstanding." He studied the map in more detail. "Why are we showing up in blue?" he asked.

"I guess the system recognises us as something different," Pearson replied. "Hopefully we won't have triggered any of the Goa'uld's warning systems."

Ferretti did a quick count. "It might not matter if we have. Look how few of them there are."

"If this is working properly."

"If this is working properly," Ferretti agreed. "But let's assume it is. Lieutenant; come and take a seat!" he called.

Alexa hurried over. "What do you need, Colonel?" she asked.

"Do you read Goa'uld?" he asked.

"Not what you'd call well," she demurred.

"But Danica does," he suggested.

"Yes," Alexa agreed, "but I'm not her."

"Could you tap into her mind?" Ferretti asked. "Try to give us some idea..."

"No," Alexa interrupted. "I mean, I probably _could_ , but please don't ask me, Sir."

Ferretti looked into her eyes and saw that she was steeling herself to do as he asked. He gave a curt nod. "Just a thought," he assured her. "Stay here, Alexa," he decided. "You keep an eye on the map, point us in the right direction and steer us away from any trouble. If anyone heads towards this room, you let us know and then get under cover and hold ‘em off the best you can until we can reach you. I'll booby-trap the door as we go, so be careful coming out if you have to. Understand?"

"Yes, Sir," she acknowledged. "And, Sir..."

"Yes, Lieutenant?"

"I think it likes us," Alexa said.

"‘It'?"

"There is an intelligence here," she explained. "In the computer system. It's not like a human mind, or a Scourge; I don't know if you'd even call it intelligence, rather than...awareness, perhaps. But whatever it is, I can sense that it likes us. That's why we're in blue on the scanner."

Ferretti took a moment to take this in, and then he shrugged. "No accounting for taste," he decided.

*

"You may rest in my quarters, mortal," Djanka told Merlyn. "I have many questions to put to you and I wish you refreshed when we begin."

Merlyn tried to think of a pithy comeback, but her mind felt sluggish. She was aware of Djanka's power pressing down on her and, although the Queen was evidently unable to overwhelm her will completely, so much of Merlyn's strength was occupied with resisting that power that she had little left for sarcasm. "Whatever," was as good as she could manage before she collapsed onto a soft armchair.

"I will wring out your knowledge," Djanka assured her. "I will learn things that you never even knew that you knew, but it does not have to be a one-way process. As your companion will find a new purpose in Yanis' embrace, you could discover a new calling as my servant. Please me and I will give you power, sorceress; I shall make you a queen."

"I'll pass," Merlyn said. "I'll cooperate as far as I have to for as long as you have my friend, but I will not join you."

Djanka shook her head and chuckled softly. "Poor little mortal. You have no idea what I could offer you. Serve me well and worlds will answer to you; a dozen slaves will attend your every whim." As though to prove her point, Djanka snapped her fingers; at once, a lissom slave appeared at her side. He was human, rather than kalshek'tak, and his body was marked with the ragged scars of old bite wounds.

"What is your desire, My Queen?" the young man asked.

"Summon my Seer," Djanka replied, "then bring refreshments for my guest."

The slave bowed. "As you command me, My Queen."

"You see?" Djanka said with a chuckle. "He would offer me his blood as easily as he will offer you wine. He would die just to please me, or execute his own kith and kin if I called them traitors. As my emissary, you would have this power."

"I don't want it," Merlyn replied.

"Do not be a fool!" Djanka snapped. "Do you honestly believe that your friend will rescue you?"

"It doesn't matter," Merlyn replied. "Whether he rescues me or I rescue him or we stay here forever, I do not _want_ that kind of power."

Djanka sneered. "Your defiance is irrelevant. I shall know all that you know."

Merlyn did not answer, for she had realised that it did not matter what she said: Djanka's existence was utterly given over to a single end; the acquisition of power. She would never believe that Merlyn did not want power, because she simply could not conceive that _anyone_ could not share her goal. Small wonder that the Goa'uld could never trust; all they could see around them were rivals and enemies waiting to challenge them. Djanka would even see a plot in the eye of the slave whose subjugation was a source of such pride.

"Perhaps you would like to see my collection?" Djanka suggested. She snapped her fingers again; this time the slave who appeared was a girl, but again her skin was broken by the marks of Djanka's terrible fangs. "Bring my collection, girl," she ordered.

"Yes, My Queen."

"I think you shall be impressed," Djanka assured Merlyn. She pulled up another chair and sat close in front of Merlyn, so that Merlyn could not avoid looking into her eyes.

The servant returned with a large wooden box. Djanka stroked the girl's cheek with a possessive hand, and then took the case from her. She signalled with a finger and the girl fetched a small table, on which Djanka set the box. She gestured again and the girl knelt beside Djanka's chair. The Queen smiled at Merlyn, and then reverently opened the box.

"This is merely a selection of my finest specimens," she explained. "My full collection is archived on Nign, each pair mounted in their own mask."

Merlyn's stomach squirmed as she remembered what it was that Djanka collected.

The Queen lifted a silver mask from the box. "This is a poor substitute," she admitted. "On Nign each mask is crafted into the exact likeness of the donor, but this shall serve for my purposes." She turned a little in her chair and set the mask over the slave girl's face. The craftwork was incredible; the sculpted face was so detailed that it looked almost alive, save for the eyes, which were empty sockets. Then Djanka reached into the box and brought out two large, glass spheres, which she set in place in the mask.

"Oh, God," Merlyn whispered, aghast.

"There," she said. "Are they not beautiful?"

From the cool, impassive silver face, a pair of perfect, emerald green eyes now stared, sightlessly.

"The preservation is perfect," Djanka explained. "The eyes must be sealed within moments of their plucking, or they lose their form, and of course they must be taken from the sockets intact. It is all too easy to slip and damage the orb and then the eye is quite useless, as I am sure you understand.

Merlyn swallowed hard. She knew that this was her punishment for defying the Queen and denying her own, non-existent desire for power and she was determined not to give Djanka the satisfaction of retching. "And where did this pair come from?" she asked.

"This pair, I took from a priestess who served me when I was the Queen-consort of Svarog. She was a good and loyal servant, both before and after she gave me her eyes."

Merlyn shivered. Djanka removed the priestess' eyes from the mask and put another pair in their place. These were a very dark blue, shot through with green.

"I took these from a boy on the planet Verbena," Djanka explained, for all the world as though she were showing her holiday snaps. "He was young, strong and beautiful; one of Svarog's ladies desired him most terribly. I let her have him, but I kept his eyes. Her interest in him waned, swiftly," she added, with a chuckle.

The laugh was too much for Merlyn. Despite her resolve, her stomach heaved. She leaned over the arm of her chair and vomited onto the floor below. Her guts twisted into knots inside her, churning and twisting until they had completely emptied themselves of all content.

As she recovered herself, Merlyn realised that yet more slaves had appeared. One had caught most of her vomit in a silver bowl, two more had already begun to clean up after her and a fourth had brought water and a flannel for her to wash her face. She rinsed, spat and wiped herself down, feeling weak and dejected. There was very little, she decided, that could destroy a person's dignity and resolve to resist as swiftly and efficiently as being forced to throw up in public.

In an attempt to retain some vestige of control over the situation, Merlyn studiedly avoided looking at Djanka, or at the slave in the silver mask, until she had made herself roughly presentable. When she did turn towards them, the boy's eyes were gone. The pair which had replaced them were even more extraordinary; the irises were blood red, but streaked with black and ringed outside and inside with a fine line of brilliant gold. They were, undeniably, the eyes of a kalshek'tak.

"These are the pride of my collection," Djanka explained, "or they will be until I add your friend's perfect blues to my case. I think his mask should be forged of alabaster, or perhaps white gold. But these eyes should be of immediate interest to you."

"Why?" Merlyn asked.

Djanka lifted her hand and beckoned over her shoulder. The slave man approached; a kalshek'tak female followed him, her hand gently clasping his shoulder. In contrast to the usual, sinuous grace of the vampires, she moved with an awkward, shuffling gait; her eyes had been plucked out.

The female lifted her head and scented the air, then turned to face directly towards Djanka's chair. "I come as summoned, My Queen," she reported; there was no Goa'uld resonance in her voice.

"As I see," Djanka replied, impatiently. "Human, this is Maricza. She is my Seer and these are _her_ eyes. Are they not exquisite?"

Merlyn did not reply. She was putting too much energy into not fainting.

 

Timothy Roberts was one of those fortunate people who never suffered from hangovers, partly because he never drank to excess, but partly because of some bizarre quirk of genetics. Ordinarily, this was an unmitigated blessing, but on the other hand an occasional hangover would have prepared him in some small degree for the agony and disorientation which awaited him on awakening. His brain felt as though it were trying to break out of his skull, his limbs ached from the beating they had received, a six-inch intravenous needle had been inserted into his arm and there was a shallow, ragged tear in his throat. Even before awareness forced its way fully through the pounding in his head, he had managed to work out that this was not one of his better mornings.

Roberts forced his eyes to open, against all advice. Almost at once, he wished he had listened to his body.

"You are awake," Yanis purred. "Good." She narrowed her crimson eyes and raised her hands to display the lethal talons which tipped her long, slim fingers. In the depths of her pupils, a dark, hungry light began to burn and the whites of her eyes flared. "Then it is time."

"Time for what?" Roberts groaned, deciding that he might as well take the bait and get it over with.

"Time for the games to begin," she announced.

Roberts stifled a moan. So much for getting it over with.

*

Pearson and Ferretti pressed into a supply closet, trying hard not to breathe.

" _Alright_ ," Alexa's voice whispered in their ears. " _They're around the corner, moving away from you. You just have another short section of corridor and there's no-one approaching_."

Ferretti nodded, redundantly. "Go, Sergeant," he said.

"Sir."

Pearson left the closet and went swiftly down the corridor. Ferretti followed close on his heels, eyes darting left and right, wary, despite Alexa's reassurances. When Pearson knelt before the door controls, Ferretti stood watch over him.

"Time, Rasputin?"

" _At least a minute before anyone reaches you,_ " she assured him.

"Long enough," Pearson declared, gently levering open the panel. "Internal security doesn't seem to be much of a thing here. I guess they didn't expect much in the way of intruders here on their Scourge hellworld. I wonder why not?" The door hissed and slid open. "Gosh, I'm good," the sergeant sighed; even with Merlyn temporarily incommunicado, habit obliged him to avoid blasphemy. He closed the panel and slipped inside; Ferretti followed and the door closed behind them.

"Lieutenant?" Ferretti whispered.

" _Still clear, Sir_ ," Alexa promised.

"Good." Thus reassured, Ferretti gave a whistle of astonishment. The label had been correct; this room was an armoury. There were two racks of heavy long-arms and one of handguns – about a dozen of each – and a block of individual lockers in the centre of the room, alongside a table. "How come the Goa'uld never touched this lot?" he wondered.

"The door was sealed, Sir," Pearson replied. "The Goa'uld haven't even been in here. You were looking out for Jaffa, but I was looking at the door," he added. "I couldn't help noticing that they had etched it with what looked a lot like a korush-nai symbol."

" _That awareness I spoke about is still present,_ " Alexa cautioned, " _and currently very interested in what you're doing._ "

"I guess the Goa'uld – or even the Jaffa – wouldn't be allowed in here," Pearson surmised.

"Whoever owned this place is long dead. How would they stop them?"

In answer, Pearson shone his flashlight up at the ceiling of the room; a pair of turrets were fixed in front of the door, motionless, but somehow...watchful.

"Let me know if they start to move," Ferretti said.

"Yes, Sir," Pearson acknowledged. "I guess we know why they didn't bother to secure their doors."

"What do you make of these?" Ferretti asked, indicating the weapon racks.

"These are definitely Shay weapons, Sir," the sergeant replied. "Older than the ones we recovered from the Tower, perhaps a generation less advanced, but recognisably the same kind of weapon; like...an M-16 compared to a G36."

"So you can say what kind of weapons they are?"

With half an eye on the turrets, Pearson holstered his MPX, reached out and picked up one of the Shay weapons. When the turrets did not react, he laid the weapon on the table, then opened the breech and examined the weapon's mechanism. "Plasma-caster," he declared at last. "See: here's the ionisation chamber and the barrel is ringed with magnetic constrictor coils. There's a thermal unit..."

Ferretti raised a hand for silence. "I'll take your word for it," he promised. "Now, what about this?" he asked. He had opened one of the lockers to reveal a suit of bulky black armour.

"It's similar to the Shay hunting armour that was found on Shayara," Pearson replied, "but much heavier. If they were studying The Scourge, then this might have been designed as a survival suit; their equivalent of our Omega gear."

"Rather less flattering," Ferretti noted, rapping his knuckles against the abdominal plate of the suit.

Pearson reached into the locker and took out a scabbarded sword; the curve of the blade was very familiar. "And this confirms the Shay origins," he noted. "A tchul'da."

"Gesundheit."

"A Shay hunter's sword," Pearson explained, patiently.

"Yes, I know," Ferretti assured him. "Roberts brought one back from Danica's palace. I'm not a complete idiot, you know. Honestly, you try to lighten the mood a little..."

 " _I think I've got the hang of the map controls,_ " Alexa reported. " _I've managed to bring up a secondary display. You're not going to believe it, but it looks like a ventilation system, underneath the floors._ "

"You have got to be kidding me," Ferretti said.

" _Seriously. There should be a hatch in the floor of the armoury; somewhere towards the south wall. If you can get that open, you should be able to get from the armoury to the workshop, question mark, without going back into the corridors. The system shows no enemy presence in the ventilation shaft._ "

"I see the hatch," Pearson said.

Ferretti shrugged. "Give it a go," he agreed.

Pearson knelt down. After a few moments, he located a panel which opened to reveal a simple control handle. "Looks simple enough," he said. "I'll check for booby-traps, though."

Ferretti nodded. "I'm going to grab a couple of those plasma-casters; do they need any ammunition?"

"No."

Ferretti collected a pair of the weapons and carried them to the side of the hatch. "We set to go?"

"Well, if there are booby-traps, I can't find them," Pearson admitted. He grasped the handle. "You might want to step back."

"I trust you," Ferretti assured him.

Pearson shook his head. "Well that's the kind of confidence that can really be a burden, Sir," he noted. Without further ado, he twisted the handle and pulled. The hatch sprang open; Ferretti took a wary step forwards, then reeled back, gagging.

" _Have you opened the ventilator, Colonel?_ " Alexa asked.

"Yes," Ferretti replied. "But, lieutenant."

" _Sir?_ "

"For the record: _Not_ a ventilator." He shook his head.

Pearson smiled. "The lieutenant is right, though," he said. "This is the best way to move around in here."

"Oh, man. Alright," he sighed. "Lieutenant?"

" _Sir?_ "

"Can you get into the...ventilators?"

" _Yes, Sir_ ," she replied.

"Well, since you discovered this incredible aroma, it seems only fair that you get to share it with us," Ferretti explained. "Retrieve the packs and get yourself into the sewers. Meet us in the workshop, question mark."

" _But, Colonel..._ "

"The packs are designed to double as emergency flotation devices," Pearson reminded her. "Release the catches and you can float them down the pipe."

" _Got it_."

"Okay," Ferretti sighed. "Lock seals, Pearson. Go to bottled air. We may have to wade in it, but we don't have to smell it."

_*_

Yanis watched, intently, as Roberts pulled the intravenous needle from his hand. She licked her lips as a drop of his blood fell from the needle's tip.

"Blood plasma," he noted, looking at the bag on the other end of the IV line.

"Plasma, clotting agents and healing factors," Yanis replied. "We wouldn't want you to die too soon would we?"

"Well, I wouldn't."

Yanis gave a throaty chuckle. "I shall enjoy you, human," she assured him.

"Not while I have my strength," Roberts assured her. "And my name is Roberts."

"My name is Yanis," she responded, as he had felt sure she would, "and you have no strength." Yanis crossed to the door and unlocked it with a key that she took from her belt. "Allow me to demonstrate. There is no guard outside; please, walk out."

Roberts paused for a moment, but he decided that he had nothing much to lose. He tried to stand up, but his limbs would not respond. He felt a sick sensation in his stomach and the same, burning pressure on his mind that had gripped him when he tried to fight Djanka.

"You see? You can not even _stand_ if I will you to stay."

Roberts swallowed hard and took a deep breath. He mustered his resolve and tried to rise again.

Yanis laughed.

Refusing to become discouraged, Roberts struggled to relax his mind. He let the rest of his body go limp and turned his energies to making just his right arm move.

The pressure in his head became a searing pain. His arm trembled, spasmodically, as though gripped by palsy. Across the room, beads of sweat began to form on Yanis' brow. Slowly, Roberts' shivering arm began to rise from the coverlet. He clenched his fist hard and the shaking stopped. He lowered the arm, then with a great effort he pushed himself to a sitting position.

"Enough!" Yanis snapped. She turned away and locked the door again.

Released from the pressure all of a sudden, Roberts sprang upright, gasping with relief. He leaped up as swiftly as he could, but Yanis turned back and shoved him down. She was almost as swift and as strong as her mother, even if her mental strength was less.

"So, you see how futile your resistance is," Yanis scoffed.

"Quite," Roberts responded, dryly. He could see uncertainty in her eyes; uncertainty and fear. He did not believe that she considered him a real, physical threat to her, but one of the drawbacks of their power was that the Goa'uld almost invariably felt an abject dread of anyone or anything that defied their dominion even for a moment.

Yanis backed off to consider her options and Roberts made a quick review of the situation. The kalshek'tak had the advantage of speed, strength and health, coupled with mental gifts that were undoubtedly powerful, if not quite so overwhelming as she liked to think. She had a long dagger with a wicked curve to its blade and the ring on the middle finger of her right hand looked like an assassin's blaster. He had his Omega suit, but no helmet, gloves or communications. To the best of his knowledge, Colonel Ferretti, Alexa and Pearson were still free, while Merlyn was his fellow prisoner.

All told, he decided that the odds could generously be considered even.

 

The slave led Maricza towards Merlyn. Djanka snatched up the Seer's free hand and yanked her forward. The Queen dismissed the slave and roughly tugged Maricza back and forth until she had arranged her alongside the girl who wore her eyes in the silver mask.

Merlyn considered Maricza. Her face was rounder than that of the other kalshek'tak whom Merlyn had seen; it softened the hard edges of her prominent facial bones, although when her narrow, red lips parted, her teeth were the same, jagged fangs. Her hair was red, almost as red as Merlyn's and far longer, which gave her pale skin a hint of colour that further humanised her aspect. It was hard to be sure with her eyes torn out and only raw, ragged sockets remaining, but Merlyn thought that she must have been very beautiful. She would have been more beautiful than Djanka and Merlyn wondered if that was why she had lost her eyes.

But if the Seer's face was almost human, her body had all of the alien attributes of the kalshek'tak. She was thin, all the way down, from her shoulders to her feet. She was dressed in a loose, knee-length tunic of rough cotton; this was belted at the waist and fell almost straight down over her narrow hips. She had no bust to speak of and only her face suggested a feminine, rather than a masculine identity.

Merlyn was struck by the fact that the Queen, Djanka, with her curvaceous figure, looked more human than kalshek'tak, at least until one looked at her face.

"Seer," Djanka growled. "Read her. Tell me her weaknesses...and how long she will take to break."

Maricza bowed. "Yes, My Queen," she acknowledged. She moved slowly forward with faltering steps, hands feeling the air in front of her. Behind her, the Queen turned away and feigned disinterest, busying herself with repacking her precious collection. Merlyn stood firm as the groping hands reached her, touching the breastplate of her suit, then feeling her way up to her face. With incredible delicacy, the kalshek'tak's traced the contours of Merlyn's features.

"She is pretty," Maricza noted.

"I can see that," Djanka hissed, impatiently. "Tell me something that I can not."

Maricza smiled conspiratorially at Merlyn, the expression hidden from Djanka, but she moved her hands so that her left palm lay over Merlyn's heart, the right across her brow. Her sightless sockets fixed on Merlyn's eyes and somehow Merlyn _knew_ that the eyeless woman could, in some fashion, _see_ her.

"Well?" Djanka demanded.

"She is a mighty sorceress with a powerful name," Maricza said, "although she fears and denies her own power."

"Denies power," the Queen scoffed. "Ridiculous."

"She is a righteous soul," Maricza continued, "and she thinks her power unholy."

Merlyn stifled a gasp; however the Seer's power might work, she was certainly perceptive. Merlyn did not believe – could not allow herself to believe – that her ability to manipulate the phonic formulae – spells – that constituted the technology of the pre-Ancient cultures she studied was the result of an unnatural gift, she could not deny that their use was affecting her. When she intoned the formulae, she was channelling vast power through her own mind and body; it was impossible that she would _not_ be changed by it.

"The superstitious fool. Such a fragile mind will break easily."

"No, My Queen," Maricza replied. "She will not. She will never bend to your will."

Merlyn's heart leaped with hope.

Djanka rounded on the Seer with a furious hiss. " _All_ must bend to me! Her power can not be so great."

"She will not resist you by her own power," Maricza replied, "but she believes in something greater than herself. You can not break her, because she believes herself in the hands of one who will defend her. You can not shake such faith; all your power will not even make a mark upon it."

The Queen gave a bestial cry of rage and swung at Maricza. A backhand blow caught the Seer on the side of her head and knocked her flying across the chamber. Djanka's blood-red eyes burned as she locked her gaze on Merlyn's. " _You will submit to me_!" she commanded, and she hurled the words at the human with all the psychic force at her command.

*

Ferretti lifted the last pack out of the sewer, then reached down for Alexa's hand.

"I want to thank you, Sir," Alexa told him. "I am very happy to have been allowed to share this experience with you."

Ferretti caught her by the wrist. "You found this smell, Lieutenant, it wouldn't be right..."

Alexa cried out and arched backwards, almost dragging Ferretti headfirst into the sewer. He threw himself backwards, dragging her up and overbalancing onto his back. She screamed again.

"What's wrong, Lieutenant?" Pearson asked, pulling her weight off Ferretti. "Lieutenant!"

Ferretti sat up. "Rasputin!" he called, grasping her shoulders and looking into her unfocused eyes. "Alexa!"

"The Scourge," Alexa gasped. "It is waking!"

*

Merlyn's body collapsed before Djanka's psychic assault. Her mind was shattered under the sheer force of the attack, but the words of the Seer had confirmed what she had known already; that her faith could not so easily be overthrown. Flesh and will might be weak, but her soul belonged to God and no alien force could change that. The world dissolved into white light around her, but at the heart of it, she remained Merlyn.

"My Queen!"

The light faded. Slowly, awareness returned. Hearing first, then touch, scent and finally sight filtering through the pain to restore Merlyn's fractured self. She lay on the floor of Djanka's apartments and listened, unable to do more.

" _Do not interrupt me, slave!_ "

"But the shen'kal?" Maricza insisted. "Can you not feel them?"

Merlyn could. At the corner of her mind, she could sense The Scourge, its Minds – the shen'kal; machine souls – squirming and writhing as they struggled to be free of the weakened gestalt. She could feel its power, the force that it commanded and she knew that the temple pit beneath her was larger than any they had encountered before. The fragile tissue of the kalshek'tak's psychic web lay between her and those Minds and she could feel it tearing as Djanka drew strength from it to attack Merlyn.

Then the force was gone completely, the gestalt-web snapped back to full strength and the Minds screamed in frustrated rage as they were forced once more into an increasingly shallow slumber.

"You will witness your friends suffer such torments as will become legendary, even among the Goa'uld!" Djanka screamed. "Your eyes. Your precious, pretty eyes will see such sights that you will _beg_ me to tear them from your head. And you, Seer...I shall deal with you later."

The door slammed and Merlyn was left in silence. Then something moved, shuffling across the floor towards her. A cool hand touched her forehead; the pain in her head seemed to recede.

"Maricza?" Merlyn asked.

"You are whole," the Seer noted. "That is good."

*

Alexa woke with a start, a sharp, acrid scent filling her nostrils. She shook her head to try and escape the odour; this proved to be a mistake.

"Oh, my head," she groaned.

"This should help," Ferretti said. As she came back to full consciousness, Alexa was aware of the Colonel closing her visor and restoring the seal. Immediately her head began to clear, the Omega suit's modulated energy distribution grid shielding her from the psychic influence of The Scourge.

"The Scourge..." she moaned.

Ferretti rapped his knuckles on the top of her helmet. "Hello," he chided. "Your Colonel is _not_ an idiot. We checked the nanite scan before I cracked your visor; for future ease of use I plan on recommending the techs build a smelling salt dispenser into the next generation of Omega suit."

Alexa sat up and rubbed the back of her neck; this was not especially effective, as there was a layer of protective armour between hand and neck. "That's a particularly distinctive aroma," she noted, hoping that it would clear from her nose some time soon.

"What's good enough for Mama Ferretti is good enough for you," he assured her. "Come on; we need your help. Pearson and I speak a combined total of no Shay and not-much Goa'uld."

" _I_ speak no Shay and not-much Goa'uld," Alexa reminded him.

Ferretti shrugged. "Three lots of squat are better than two," he assured her. He reached down and offered her his hand.

"So where are we?" Alexa asked as she stood.

"We're in the workshop, question mark," Ferretti replied.

Alexa looked past Ferretti. "Or in your parlance: Heaven," she noted.

The workshop, question mark, had a low-ceiling and lots of floor space. Standing power tools clustered around the walls. A trio of six-wheeled jeeps stood in the centre of the floor, a heavier version of the plasma caster was mounted on the roof of each. There was a huge door in one wall, through which the jeeps could drive out; it was a garage.

Ferretti gave her a funny look. "Something like that," he admitted. "Sergeant Pearson has brought up another schematic. Those doors should lead into the main cavern; I figure if we can get one of these bad boys running and the doors open, we can blast through and have a decent shot at the weakest flank of the Goa'uld perimeter; or at least the Gate defences if we find we need more firepower."

"Hmm," Alexa remarked, vaguely.

"Lieutenant?"

"That door leads into the main cavern," she agreed, "but the smaller door in the back of the garage leads via a long tunnel into the observation chamber."

Ferretti raised an eyebrow. "Observation chamber?"

"At the top of the dome over the Scourge temple pit," Alexa explained. "I really don't think I can help Pearson with the systems in here; maybe I should go and take a look down there instead." She nodded hopefully towards the small door.

Ferretti gave a mirthless laugh. "On your own? With your track record in the face of alien psychic presences, I don't think so."

Alexa deflated. "Of course, Sir," she replied.

"Pearson!"

"Sir?"

"This room is marked on the map as Goa'uld free, right?"

"Yes, Sir."

"You okay to get one of these beauties running?"

"Can I drive?" Pearson asked, hopefully.

"Maybe next time," Ferretti allowed.

Pearson shrugged. "Sure. I'll get you your ride."

Ferretti nodded. "Then Rasputin and I will be next door," he said, with a pointed look at Alexa. "We're going to do some...Scourge watching."

*

Merlyn found that she recovered very quickly, although that could have been due to Maricza's attentions. The Seer's touch was soothing and Merlyn had a feeling that there was something more to it than the coolness of her skin; it made sense that the kalshek'tak's psychic abilities could heal as well as harm.

Merlyn sat up and opened her eyes. "Well, that could have gone better," she sighed. She looked around and found that she was alone, except for Maricza. The Seer was sitting in one of the chairs, eerily still. Merlyn rose shakily to her feet. Maricza made no move, did not even turn towards her, and so Merlyn began to look around the Queen's chambers.

The first thing that Merlyn noticed was that the room was divided into two distinct areas. The first was the cosy study area where Djanka had displayed her collection. Plush seats stood in front of a large fireplace and an ornate writing desk was located in the darkest corner. There were large windows with heavy, dark curtains and the floor was thickly carpeted. On the far side of the room, however, the floor and the walls were clad in smooth, highly-polished black marble. Torches burned on the wall, dark red flames casting a grim and menacing light. The only furniture on that side was a massive altar of black basalt.

The darker half of the room made Merlyn feel uncomfortable, so she turned away from it and went to the desk. Even with the curtains drawn back, there would have been little chance of sunlight reaching a person sitting behind it; presumably this was a deliberate decision, given the observed photosensitivity of the kalshek'tak. Her weapons and pack were gone, of course, but some of her tools had been left in her belt, including a small flashlight; Merlyn twisted the top of the light for a wide beam and played it across the surface of the desk. There was nothing to see there and she turned her attention instead to the drawers.

There were no keyholes or handles on the desk drawers. Instead, there was a small panel on each, bearing a number of sliding sections inscribed with Goa'uld characters; a linguistic puzzle lock.

"Really more Roberts' speed," Merlyn whispered under her breath, "but here goes."

 

"You are weak," Yanis taunted, holding Roberts pinned with her mind while she struck at him.

Powerless to block or evade her blow, Roberts was knocked down and slid across the floor until he fetched up against a large cabinet. Nevertheless, he felt a glow of triumph. He had managed to move his fingers in the moments before Yanis struck him, which meant that her psychic grip was definitely slackening. She was growing weary and losing focus. He in turn had suffered a severe pounding, but she was being careful not to damage him too much; her mother wanted him alive.

Unfortunately, it might be too late already. Each time she struck at him, Roberts found images rising unbidden into his mind. He could feel the tendrils of her extrasensory abilities delving ever-deeper into his memory, seeking for knowledge of his world, his team and The Scourge. Without ever questioning him, she was skilfully prising out the information that she desired from him. He was sure that he had blocked her attempts so far, but even as she lost the ability to hold his body still, so his cerebral defences were growing strained.

He would break before she did, he was almost sure of that, which left him only one course of action. "I may be weak, but I'm not the one who had to abandon my home," he scoffed, deliberately provoking her.

Yanis stepped up and kicked him in the ribs; this time there was no mental grip and he was able to roll with the blow. She was careless when enraged and he believed that he could either tempt her to make a mistake or at least force her to kill him before his secrets were in her keeping.

"You know nothing of us," Yanis hissed. "We do not flee. It is not right that our Queen live among human filth; she returns to Nign to dwell in the blessed shadows."

"You really believe that," he realised. "You poor cow," he muttered, before he could stop himself.

Yanis gave a strangled cry of rage, infuriated beyond endurance to be the recipient of a mortal's _pity_. She sent another paralysing mental jolt through his body, then hoisted him up by the collar of his Omega suit and drew back her fist for a punch that would crush his skull.

Fortunately for Roberts, a pale, long-fingered hand caught Yanis' wrist before she could swing. Djanka moved between the two of them and pulled them apart, slinging Roberts dismissively to the bed and rounding on her daughter.

"What are you doing?" she hissed. "I told you to find out what he knows; there will be time for games when we are secure once more."

"He is strong," Yanis pleaded, weak and wheedling before her Queen. "It will take time to break him."

"Not this much time! He is skilled and strong, but he is only human." She cast a scornful glower upon Roberts. "You waste time playing with this pretty thing when I stand on the edge of greatness."

"I'm flattered," Roberts groaned.

"If you were focused on your goal, he would be pleading to tell you all he knows, as his companion is."

Roberts felt the colour drain from his face. Could it be true? What could Djanka have done to Merlyn to make her break so quickly? He wished that he could simply dismiss it, but he knew that all people – even Meredith Lloyd – had their limits...and their frailties.

"Oh, yes," Djanka gloated. "She was sickeningly easy to subvert. She _willingly_ told me all I wished to know, for the promise that she might keep her eyes and be given to one of my sons as a plaything. Her lust was pathetic to behold."

While he knew that it would bring him more pain, Roberts could not help himself. The idea that Merlyn had been broken chilled him, but the notion that lust would cause her to falter was purely ludicrous. From nothing more than pure relief, Roberts laughed out loud. He looked Djanka in the eyes and laughed and laughed and laughed. He felt the Queen's power upon him, but she could no more force him to stop laughing than he could make himself do the same.

"Be silent!" Djanka snarled. She stepped forward and slammed a fist into Roberts' jaw, flinging him back and silencing him at last.

"Bravo, My Queen," Yanis purred, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Of course she was struck for her impertinence, almost as hard as Roberts had been, but it almost seemed worth it.

*

The Shay who had built this outpost had clearly known about the Scourge temple. They had not only dug a wide shaft down to the pit, they had created an observation dome using a pair of huge, cunningly arranged lenses, by which a person at the top of the shaft could look at the surface of the glass dome which capped it and see the entire depth of the pit in magnified detail. As Alexa had sensed, the pit was vast and, unlike the temple which they had destroyed on P3A-126, the many galleries which lined the sides of the shaft were clustered with devices and dormant machines. The dome was surrounded by a railing, which also took the weight of three of the terminals.

Ferretti gave a low whistle. "Very flash," he conceded. "Shame about the view."

"This must be why they were here," Alexa said.

"Who?"

"The Shay. Look at this thing: They built this whole outpost to study The Scourge."

"Rash," Ferretti said. "Very rash."

Alexa shrugged. "I can't say it seems a smart move, but whatever happened to make them abandon the fort, they _weren't_ overrun by The Scourge. Everything up here is pristine and The Scourge are sitting down there, just now stirring in their sleep." She moved to one of the terminals and began pressing the touchscreen.

"Should you be doing that?" Ferretti asked.

"I had time to get a feel for the system when I was guiding you from the control room and, as I say, the computers seem to _want_ us to find our way around. I'm just looking for...Yes." Alexa stood back. The terminal was showing a series of monitors, all showing red, and a large, white circle.

"What am I looking at?" Ferretti asked.

"These are security monitors," Alexa explained. "They show that the various suppression fields have been disabled or have failed over the years. Until the Shay left, The Scourge were probably held down by the fields. Over the years, those packed in, one-by-one, but there was no-one to feed off until the kalshek'tak arrived and put the Minds to sleep their own way."

Ferretti nodded his understanding. "Can we put them back to sleep?" Ferretti asked.

Alexa shook her head. "I doubt we could _find_ the systems, let alone restore them, but there is this." She pointed at the white circle, but did not touch it.

"And that is?"

"Well, white is the Shay danger colour," Alexa explained. "If they wanted to warn people off something, they painted it white."

Ferretti grinned. "So this is the Shay answer to a big, red button?"

"Yes, Sir."

Ferretti toggled his radio. "Sergeant; how's it going?"

" _Ready when you are_ ," Pearson replied.

"Great. Get in here a moment, will you; and bring those rifles."

It only took Pearson a few moments to join them at the dome. "Nice optics," he commented.

"Flattery will get you nowhere," Ferretti assured him. "Rasputin; show him the kill switch."

"Sir."

"Your professional opinion, Sergeant," Ferretti demanded. "What's the big boomeroo and will it do the trick?"

Pearson worked the terminal for a few minutes, then said: "I don't think it will." He gestured at the screen, which was now displaying some complex technical schematics. "Again I can't read the annotations, but I'm pretty sure it's an ion-impulse bomb. It's a standard Shay design; we've found a dozen on Shayara. It's a very powerful charge, but against The Scourge, raw power isn't enough. That's probably why they didn't detonate it when they left."

"Shame," Ferretti replied. "I was kind of hoping we could blow this whole lot to hell."

"Good plan," Pearson agreed.

"Sure; except we can't do it."

Pearson grinned. " _This_ bomb won't do it and the disruptor bomb isn't big enough, but I should be able to cobble the two together and come up with something workable."

"Sounds like a plan," Ferretti agreed.

"With just one problem," Alexa asserted.

Ferretti gave her a questioning look.

Alexa pointed at the dome. "I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with IB," she explained. Her finger was levelled at an object in the centre of the view, suspended beneath the observation lenses, some thirty feet below the top of the shaft.

"Impulse bomb," Ferretti sighed.

"Ion-impulse bomb," Pearson corrected. "Would that be IIB? I'm never sure how hyphens work in I-spy."

*

In film and literature there was a rule, that if you searched, you would find something. Merlyn had put a great deal of effort into searching Djanka's quarters without alerting the Seer and she felt deeply aggrieved when the securely locked desk turned out to contain... _nothing_. There was not even a pencil; the desk had been cleared out, as though for a move. Recalling the packed appearance of the cell in which she had woken, Merlyn realised that Djanka _was_ in the middle of a move. This base was no base at all; it was a Goa'uld yacht that had been landed beneath the shelter of the Scourge temple dome, but which was still loaded up with furniture. Everything interesting was probably in a crate in a ha'tak vessel somewhere completely different.

With a sigh, Merlyn slumped into the second chair, opposite the Seer.

"Perhaps you should examine the altar?" Maricza suggested.

Merlyn started.

Maricza smiled, encouragingly. Coupled with the raw hollows of her eyes, the effect of the smile was not quite as intended.

"I beg your pardon?" Merlyn asked, for lack of anything else to say.

"The altar," the Seer repeated. "Black. Marble. Quite large. There is a secret panel on which..." She rose awkwardly to her feet. "Would you mind?" she asked.

Merlyn stood up, somewhat baffled. She took Maricza's arm and led her towards the altar. "Watch your step here," she said. "The carpet is about an inch higher than the marble."

"Thank you," Maricza replied.

"I'm not sure I understand what you're doing," Merlyn admitted.

"I am helping you as best I am able," the Seer replied.

"But...why? You're Djanka's Seer."

"Yes," Maricza agreed. "Perhaps I shall find cause to rebuke myself when I am curled up in my quarters having a quiet _read_."

"Right," Merlyn agreed. "I can see that might make you bitter. Here we are."

"Thank you," Maricza said again. She put her hands out and felt her way around to the far side of the altar.

"You haven't been blind for long, have you?"

Maricza shook her head. "The Queen was most displeased after her defeat at the fortress of the White Lady."

"Danica?"

"Yes, although the name is forbidden," the Seer replied. "The Queen lost her husband and her favourite son, as well as a great many of her warriors. The punishments that she meted out on that day were many and harsh; by some standards, I was fortunate only to lose my eyes."

"You were the one," Merlyn realised. "You were the Seer who warned Lieutenant Rasputin that she was in danger."

"Rasputin?" Maricza asked. "That is her name? Lady Danica's twin."

"Lady Danica's host's twin."

"Forgive me." Maricza's hands slid swiftly across the bloodstained top of the altar, seeking out a long groove that was clearly intended as a channel for the blood that would flow across it marble slab. She traced the line of the groove until she found a small drainage hole. "Djanka is a ruthless tyrant who grinds my people into the dust for her own gain. There is a legend among the clans who still follow the old ways, which says we will be freed and restored to our rightful place as masters of our own world. According to this legend, the means of our salvation will come from something almost unknown on our world."

"Twins," Merlyn realised.

"You are a wise woman," Maricza said, approvingly. "The legend speaks of two souls that are one, which will be instrumental in freeing the Dragr from their bondage."

Merlyn's brow creased in confusion. "Dragr?"

"Kalshek'tak is a Goa'uld word," Maricza explained. "We are the Dragr and once we ruled a mighty empire. But there is no time to speak of these things." As she spoke, the Seer rolled up her sleeve.

"What are you doing?"

"What _she_ can not imagine," Maricza replied. With that, she dragged one of her long, sharp nails along her forearm, so that her dark red blood oozed thickly into the gutter and down the hole. "She thinks that this altar is impregnable, because either one of us would resist an attempt by the other to bleed us. She could not imagine someone _willingly_ giving their own blood instead of another's."

"But why...?" Merlyn's question was answered before she could finish asking. With a sharp click and a hiss, the top of the altar rose up and slid away from Maricza. The side of the altar where the Seer stood slid forward and divided into sections, turning and unfolding into the flight controls of the Goa'uld yacht.

"Secondary controls; in case the peltac was destroyed or taken from her control. Now; if you look in the middle of the panel," the Seer suggested, moving away.

Merlyn took Maricza's place. In the middle of the control panel, Djanka had secreted a writing tablet. "What is it?" Merlyn asked.

"You ask this of me?"

Merlyn grimaced and took the tablet. At a glance, the text seemed to mention the same legend that Maricza had been speaking of. She told Maricza this and the Seer smiled.

"She has collected the sacred texts that she has forbidden to others. I hope that they shall be of use to you, Merlyn."

"I'm glad someone considers my name worth using," Merlyn said.

Maricza deftly worked one of the controls and the panel began to close up again. "She fears your name, Merlyn. It is a name of power."

Merlyn flushed. "It isn't really my name," she demurred.

"Is it not?"

Merlyn paused. It was certainly true that she was better known as Merlyn than as Meredith.

Maricza reached up and laid her hand on Merlyn's forehead once more. "It is a privilege to have met you, sorceress," she said.

*

Djanka cast a disdainful look on Roberts' still form. She glanced at Yanis and motioned with a nod for them to move away from the supine human. The Queen unlocked the large window and they stepped out onto the small balcony. On the bed, Roberts rolled over so that he faced towards the window. They spoke in soft voices, but in their arrogance the two women were not accustomed to whispering and Roberts' hearing was quite exceptional.

"You see?" Yanis asked. "His resistance is...incredible, is it not? He is strong; his mind proof against even _our_ mental force."

"I can bend him to _my_ will."

"With all the force of the clan behind you," Yanis scoffed. "And did I feel you draw on that strength to quell the woman as well? I almost lost all control of the man and I felt the shen'kal stirring in that vile pit of theirs. Could it be that you have met your match?"

"Hah!" Djanka exclaimed, derisively. "Yes, they are strong, but a _striga_ is not beyond my power, let alone this..." She paused, as though the next word were abhorrent to her. "... _dhampir_. Either one of them I could crush beneath my will; it is _together_ that they are a danger."

" _He_ would be a challenge all alone," Yanis insisted.

Djanka gave a sharp laugh. "You desire him," she taunted.

"I wish to possess him!" Yanis retorted. "I want his strength and beauty to be mine."

Djanka's reply was scornful. "You desire him as I desired your father, but _he_ at least was a kalshek'tak, not a weak, pathetic human. Take him if you can," she invited, "although I think you will be disappointed. But we stray from the point. What have you learned?" she demanded.

"Nothing of any consequence," Yanis replied, to Roberts' great relief.

"Show me."

"I...I shall make a report when I am..." Yanis blustered.

"Show me."

Roberts opened his eyes. He could not see the two kalshek'tak, but their reflections were visible in the dark panes of the open window. He saw Djanka clasp Yanis' head between her hands, heard Yanis cry out and witnessed the younger Goa'uld slump to her knees before the Queen.

"Show me!" Djanka snarled.

Yanis gave a scream that was high and loud enough to make the glass shiver in the windows. By Roberts reckoning, the cry lasted for more than ten seconds and left a throbbing pain in his head. As the echoes faded, Yanis was released from her mother's grip and slumped in a swoon across the floor of the cell. Roberts closed his eyes as Djanka came back from the balcony, shutting and locking the window before stepping over Yanis' still form.

"Get up," the Queen demanded, impatiently. "And in future, do not attempt to resist my mind. It will hurt less if you simply let me see what I wish to see; although not much less," she admitted. "You recover fast," she added, no longer addressing her daughter.

"Good thing, too," Roberts replied, opening his eyes again.

Djanka smiled, coldly. She reached down and hauled Yanis to her feet, slapping her twice across the face to rouse her. On the third swing, Yanis blocked her mother's arm and hissed at her. Djanka merely released her, dismissively.

"I hardly think that your information was _all_ worthless," Djanka chuckled. "This one has already given us much that will be invaluable."

Roberts shivered and hoped that she was bluffing again.

"We shall see what I can obtain from him," the Queen went on. "When I am done, if there is anything left of him, you may have him for your pleasure, Yanis; eyes and all. I think that the _striga_ 's eyes will make a worthier addition to my collection; they will complement those of the Seer so wonderfully. Now; hold him," Djanka ordered.

"Yes, my Queen," Yanis replied, eagerly.

Held in Djanka's gaze, Roberts had no chance of evading Yanis. The kalshek'tak swept him up and held him in a grip of iron, crushing his body against hers. One arm wrapped around his waist, the other around his arms; as holds went, it was painfully effective. Yanis put her face against his skin and sniffed, deeply.

"Control yourself, Yanis!" Djanka snapped. "This will not take long."

"If I'm so weak," Roberts quipped, "how come _you_ need _my_ blood to live?"

"Oh, we do not," Djanka assured him. "We drink blood because we _enjoy_ it."

"As I shall take great pleasure in demonstrating," Yanis crooned.

Djanka moved like a striking snake and seized Roberts' head between her hands. He felt Yanis' psychic power probing into his mind, and then Djanka's moving over that, pushing deeper into his mind, forcing its way through his barriers. He struggled to resist, but he was not trained for it; he threw up whatever trivial images he could muster to block her path, but she shredded through them, tearing his first kiss apart and barely slowing down as she crashed through the chestburster scene from Alien. Desperately, he sought for a means of defence, but to no avail. In a matter of moments, his mind was stripped bare.

"You see?" Djanka chuckled. "Weak."

Her mental claws plunged down, reaching out for Roberts' most closely guarded secrets. He felt her grip tighten around his mind and then...she was gone.

"What?" Djanka demanded, incredulously. "What have you done?"

Roberts could not answer. He knew that his mind was now completely shielded from her, but he had no idea how he had done it, or even if it were his own doing.

Djanka's face contorted with primal rage. "Hold the suppressing field in place," she hissed.

"My Queen?" Yanis sounded frightened.

"Hold it, I said! I will need the gestalt's power to break him."

"No!" Yanis protested. "The shen'kal!"

"Hold them!" Djanka demanded, and then he gaze was fixed on Roberts and he saw nothing but her eyes. He could feel the power building behind them, ready to shatter his defences, and his sanity.

"It is a pity there will be nothing left to play with," she growled, then she unleashed that terrible power.

*

"This is a Shay plasma caster," Pearson explained. "Similar in concept to a staff weapon, but built more along the lines of a conventional, terrestrial rifle and therefore more accurate, especially coupled with the enhanced, optical sighting scope built into the top of the weapon. The trigger is set well forward and enclosed. The weapon is held like this." He demonstrated the grip, bracing the butt of the weapon against his shoulder and inserting most of his forearm into the forward housing. "Aperture settings are here," he went on, working a small dial. "Maximum confinement would be preferred, since if you have to fire you'll be shooting plasma bolts at a temperature of a couple of thousand Kelvin right past my head."

"Got it," Pearson agreed, mirroring Pearson's movements with the second weapon.

"Safety is here," Pearson finished, flipping a switch. "The weapon is now engaged and ready to fire. Effective range should be about five hundred yards."

"Are you sure?"

"One way to find out," Pearson suggested.

Ferretti nodded his agreement; as one they turned and fired at the magnificent observation dome. Twin streams of plasma struck the surface of the glass and it shattered. Huge, heavy shards of glass, several inches thick, plunged down into the shaft.

Pearson engaged the safety catch and shook his head, sadly. "Normally I find the sound of breaking glass rather relaxing," he sighed, "but...I just feel like a vandal."

"It was a pretty incredible piece of work," Ferretti agreed, "but you need to get down there." A monitor in his suit gave a soft chirrup, indicating that it had switched over to internal air supplies in response to a severe biohazard in the environment. "And fast. Lieutenant; are you done there?"

"Yes, Sir," Alexa replied. "I've put the line over one of the ceiling beams; the sergeant can descend right down the middle of the shaft to where the device is held in place."

"Let me see." Ferretti came over and checked the rig. Rasputin had secured one end of the high-tensile line to the railing around the shaft, run it through a locking hoist and cast the free end over one of the support beams. As she had said, the line would now hang right down through the centre of the shaft once it was released, but Ferretti checked the rig for safety before allowing Pearson to proceed.

Alexa knew that it was probably just routine to double check the lines, but it still felt like a kick in the ribs and she could not help noticing that he took it for granted that Pearson had securely attached his safety line.

"Things I never thought I'd do," Pearson sighed as he secured his pack. "Number fifteen in an occasional series. Alright; I need to go down there and open up the ion-impulse device. The disruptor bomb contains a primary energy charge – that won't be much good on this scale – and six smaller charges, which carry the modulated disruptor wave energy. I'll need at least ten minutes to complete the work. If I can't get back..."

"We cross that bridge when they drag my cold, dead corpse across it," Ferretti assured him.

"If the worst comes to the worst and I can't get back up," Pearson insisted, "then when you hit the kill switch a security force field will surround the bomb and a metal shutter will seal off this shaft. That should keep The Scourge at bay until the bomb goes off, but you'll only have ten crindas – that's about forty-five minutes – to clear out."

"Forty-five minutes," Ferretti mused. "Let's say fifteen to get back up that tunnel to the garage; ten at a push. Then five down the hillside to the compound...That gives us half-an-hour to take out a fortress full of vampires, rescue the gang and drive off into the sunset."

"We must be right under the fortress now," Pearson realised, "since that was built in the ruins of the dome. The Shay must have cut right through the power conduits to the transmitter array."

"Theoretical discussion later," Ferretti said. "We've only got about fifty minutes of bottled air."

"Yes, Sir," Pearson agreed. He snapped his harness onto the line. "Ready."

"Good luck," Ferretti said. "Go."

Pearson swung out into space and hung there, waiting for the rope to stop swinging.

"Lieutenant," Ferretti said.

"Sir?" Alexa replied, in a slightly sullen tone.

Ferretti fixed her with a long, hard look. "Take the far side of the pit and keep watch," he said. He picked up the second plasma caster and handed it to her, reluctantly. "Look sharp and try not to boil our sergeant alive."

"Yes, Sir," she acknowledged. She felt a surge of joy inside her; he might be unhappy trusting her with such a powerful weapon, but he had revealed himself, just for a moment. ‘Our' sergeant, he had said; not ‘my' sergeant, but ‘ours'. _I will not let you down_ , she promised herself, but she did not say it to him. She would not feel comfortable; not when she did not quite believe it.

Suddenly, Alexa reeled. She staggered against the rail and almost dropped the caster down the shaft.

"Rasputin!" Ferretti snapped, harshly. "Hold it together!"

"Yes, Sir," she replied, forcing herself to conform to his demands and silently blessing him for _not_ being nice to her.

"Is it The Scourge?"

"Oh yeah."

_*_

This latest stirring of The Scourge made itself known to Merlyn as well. Under the watchful sockets of Maricza, she was making a game attempt to hotwire the door controls – although she knew that even Sergeant Pearson would have found it difficult to do so without the proper tools – when her mind, still raw from Djanka's assault, was submerged beneath a wave of horror. She fell back, swamped by images of Scourge monstrosities flailing their tentacles at her. She could feel their inhuman touch on her skin and hear the constant, susurrating murmur of their mental voice.

Then a cool hand grasped hers. She latched onto that as something real and slowly she surfaced, breaking free and pushing the hallucinations away. She could still feel The Scourge scrabbling at the corners of her mind, but her thoughts were clear.

"Again, thank you," she told Maricza.

"The Queen is growing desperate," the Seer reported. "Your friend is in grave peril."

Merlyn nodded her head. She sat up, then knelt and bowed her head. "Forgive me, Father, if this is not your will," she murmured. "I ask you to help me to find the strength to do what I must do. Amen," she finished and then crossed herself.

"Your faith is great," Maricza said. "How can you believe so utterly in a God whom you neither see nor hear?"

"I hear him," Merlyn replied, touching her chest. "And I see him."

"Where?"

Merlyn reached out and tapped Maricza's chest, over her heart. "Right here," she said.

"I do not understand," Maricza admitted.

Merlyn sat back and crossed her legs. "Perhaps one day you will," she offered. "Now, I must concentrate, please." Merlyn closed her eyes. She took three slow, deliberate breaths, and then began a chant.

" _Ïa, ïa, Tsorg'oro nagn' t'cho-fhen. Br'hïe, br'hïe, Tsorg'oro. Ïa, ïa, h'thagn._ "

*

Roberts could almost see Djanka's power leap from her hers eyes and he certainly felt it slam into his mind. It struck his mental barriers and he felt them crack and falter. Djanka drew back for the strike that would tear through all of his defences, reveal his secrets and leave him a twisted, drooling mess, but the blow never fell.

"What is that?" Yanis cried.

She threw Roberts down onto the bed. He swiftly took stock of his situation and found himself remarkably unscathed. He looked up to see what was happening and saw both kalshek'tak looking around in fear and shrinking back as though from some terrible, painful noise; a noise that Roberts could not hear.

"I _told_ you!" Yanis shrieked. "His strength was too great. You drew too much power to overcome him and now the shen'kal are loose!"

"Be silent," Djanka demanded.

"We must evacuate!"

"Be silent!" Djanka slammed the back of her hand against her daughter's head with force enough to draw blood. "Do you not hear? It is not merely drawing the power from the gestalt, it is something else. Something..." She broke off with a snarl of anger and swept from the room.

Roberts felt his skin tingling; the hair rose on the back of his arms and neck and his teeth were on edge. The glass in the windows began to sing.

"My Queen?" Yanis asked, plaintively. She rose to her feet and rounded on Roberts. "What did you do?" she demanded.

Roberts sat up. "Nothing," he admitted. "This isn't me; it's Merlyn."

"Merlyn..." Yanis turned towards the door. "Yes. Of course." A murderous gleam flashed in her eyes and she ran out after her mother. The door began to slide shut behind her.

Roberts launched himself from the bed, snagged a footstool and rolled it across the floor. It fetched up against the threshold and the door closed down on it. The force of the descending door cracked the stool, but sensors detected the resistance and the door halted, twenty inches above the floor. Roberts charged forward and dived through the gap.

*

" _How's it going, Pearson?_ "

"Slowly, Colonel," Pearson replied. I've managed to open the focusing bell of the ion-impulse bomb; plenty of ferrous metal so I can attach the disruptor charges easily enough. Well, I say ‘easily'; you know, as easy as you get when you're hanging upside down in a rappelling harness with your pack hanging in a harness next to you...and it's _dark_."

" _Just...purely on an abstract level, Sergeant Pearson,_ " Rasputin began, her voice wavering slightly, as though she were in pain, " _if there_ were _something moving in the pit below you, would you want to know?_ "

"This is an _abstract_ question, yes?"

" _Oh, yes._ "

"Then...absolutely not," Pearson decided. "Ignorance is bliss, at least until they get to...one hundred yards beneath me."

" _What happens at one hundred yards_?" Ferretti asked.

Pearson attached one of his experimental charges to the inside of the focusing bell and armed it; the resonance crystal shimmered blue. "If I drop a disruptor charge on a five second fuse, it will drop a distance of around four hundred feet; the maximum effective blast radius of a single charge is three hundred feet so I'll be well out of harm's way."

" _You're an optimist, aren't you?_ "

"I do my best, Lieutenant."

A flash of bright blue light cut though the shadows around Pearson and stabbed down into the darkness.

"Anything I should know?"

A second plasma blast followed the first, then three more fired from the opposite side of the shaft.

" _No_ ," Rasputin assured him.

Pearson attached a second disruptor charge. A scream drifted up from below him as one of the kalshek'tak monitors met an untimely end. "Oh, good," he drawled.

*

Djanka hurtled along the passageways of her ship towards the temple pit. The only chance now was for her to take personal command of the gestalt. She paused only briefly and signalled to two of her surviving Skull Guards. "Go to my quarters," she ordered, passing the more senior of the pair her key. "There is a woman there, a human; kill her."

The Jaffa bowed. "Yes, My Queen," he acknowledged.

As they hurried to obey her commands, Djanka felt The Scourge shift below her. Through the gestalt she felt the pain as the first of the machines woke and attacked her kalshek'tak. Even those who avoided the machines were invaded by the nanites and slowly she felt their minds slipping from her grasp. The Scourge was slow and sluggish at first, operating only on its limited, stored bio-energy, but each kalshek'tak subdued was swiftly transferred to one of the Mind chambers deep in the pit and plugged into the siphons.

Djanka felt a pain in the side of her head and she realised that her gestalt was being invaded. The Scourge was sending psychic tendrils along the connections between the vampires, trying to take control of all her clans.

"No!" Djanka snapped. Although it galled her, she focused her mind and sent out a signal. _Fall back to the ship. Break the gestalt and retreat from the caverns. The ship will depart imminently._ Fuming, she turned and made for the peltac.

 

In Djanka's chambers, Merlyn sat very still. Maricza's sightless eye-sockets were riveted on the slight figure; she saw nothing, but to her psychic senses, the human woman burned with a power that seemed too great for her frail flesh to contain. Slowly, the Seer backed away until her back was pressed against the door and she quivered in fear.

*

"One hundred yards!" Alexa cried. She and Ferretti were firing continuously now, plasma blasts scything past the dangling figure of Sergeant Pearson. Scourge simulacra in the form of kalshek'tak crawled up the walls, trying to reach Pearson. In the deeper shadows, green lights flared. "Bozhe moi!"

" _Lieutenant?_ "

"War machines!" Alexa took careful aim and fired on the green light, to little effect.

Another green light flashed, then a third light, this one bright blue. " _Fire in the hole!_ " Pearson called.

Alexa and Ferretti turned their heads aside and closed their eyes as blue light filled the shaft. Ferretti turned back to the shaft at once, but Alexa collapsed in a swoon.

"Lieutenant!" Ferretti barked. "Get up!"

Alexa struggled to obey, Ferretti's voice cutting through the pain in her head. "Pain," she gasped, in a voice not quite her own. "So many parts are lost to the burning light!"

" _Lieutenant!_ Snap out of it!"

Alexa shuddered. "Sir; yes, Sir!"

"Atta girl!"

Alexa flushed with pleasure and returned to her firing position. She looked through the scope and saw..."Oh dear."

"Can you climb a little faster?" Ferretti asked.

" _Oh sure; because I get_ less _tired as I go along_ ," Pearson replied.

"You got another of those bombs?"

" _Five. They're all in the focusing bell of the IIB_."

Alexa set down her plasma caster and moved around the outside of the shaft. "Sir; the rope!" she called.

"What about it?"

"Pull it!" Alexa replied. "He's tired; we're not."

Ferretti nodded. He too set down his weapon. He ran for the rope, while Alexa made for the nearest of the three terminals.

"Lieutenant; what are you doing?" Ferretti asked.

"Checking," Alexa replied. "Checking, checking...and praying." She slammed her hand down on the terminal and a klaxon sounded.

"Lieutenant!" Ferretti's voice had become rather strained.

Alexa ran around the pit again and joined her CO. Ferretti took a firm grip on the line and braced _both_ of his feet against the rail.

"Brake off," he said, "feed the line as I pull, then put the brake back on so I can shift my grip; got it?"

"Yes, Sir."

Ferretti nodded. "Pearson! Brakes on!" he called.

" _Sir_."

Ferretti waited a moment, then hauled on the rope until a great loop hung loose between his hands and the locking hoist. Alexa drew the rope swiftly through the hoist, then locked the brake on. "Ready!" she called. Ferretti sifted his grip up the line and pulled again. Again, Alexa pulled the rope through and locked on the brake. Twice more they did this, and then the brake slipped.

Alexa caught at the line as it slithered through the hoist; only her Omega gauntlets saved her from rope burns. Ferretti stumbled, then caught at Alexa's waist as Pearson's greater weight yanked her off her feet. The tension snapped suddenly out of the rope and their tumbled back in an undignified heap.

"Sergeant!" Ferretti yelled at the top of his voice. "Pearson!"

" _Sir?_ " Pearson sounded breathless, but unconcerned.

The two officers scrambled to their feet and moved to the rail. Fifteen feet down, Pearson stood on the metal shutter which sealed the shaft.

Ferretti breathed a sigh of relief. He grabbed the rope from the floor and threw it down to Pearson. "Rasputin, get the plasma casters. Let's get the hell out of here."

*

The door to Djanka's chamber slid open at the touch of the key. At once, a woman shoved past the Jaffa and fled along the corridor, crashing into the walls at every step. They began to raise their weapons, but by her strength they knew that she was a kalshek'tak, not a human. Besides, the eerie chanting which still emanated from the room told them that their target, this _thing_ that had put fear into their dread mistress – was still inside.

They turned into the room, tipped their staff weapons forward and froze.

Merlyn looked up and her chanting stopped. Power crawled beneath her skin, lighting her body from within; her eyes burned like molten magma. The air around her shimmered with heat. The two Jaffa held their fire, not knowing if their shots would even harm this spirit of subtle fire and not daring to find out.

"Go," Merlyn said. Her voice reverberated, not around the room, but in their heads. "Leave _now_."

The Jaffa turned and ran. The older of the two had the presence of mind to turn in the doorway and close the door; as it slid shut, he had one last view of the burning woman staring at him and the sight of it chilled him to his soul.

 

Merlyn stood up, shakily. She turned at a clattering behind her, but it was only a metal blind closing over the window. She staggered a little; now that she had stopped chanting the power was no longer flowing through her and she felt drained. Wherever it came from, that force was fading from her body, leaving her weak and nauseous. The presence of The Scourge, fully conscious now, still clawed at the edge of her consciousness; she fell to her knees again and vomited.

The door hissed open again. " _This_ is what defeated my mother?"

Merlyn looked up. Yanis stood in the doorway with a heavy, two-handed sword in her hands. Murder blazed in her crimson eyes. There was no fear there; clearly all of the power had fled from Merlyn now.

The vampire raised her sword.

"Yanis!"

Merlyn and the vampire turned to the door. Merlyn's heart leaped, then sank again. She was getting used to viewing Roberts as her guardian angel, but that was hardly the image he cut now. He slumped awkwardly against the door frame. His body was bent and he looked exhausted. Somehow, Merlyn had never pictured him so tired; it made him more human, but just at that moment, she would rather have the unstoppable, inhuman Roberts.

Roberts charged; Yanis knocked him aside with indolent ease, scorning even to use her sword on him. His momentum carried him on and he tumbled against one of the heavy chairs. Incredibly, he still managed to drag himself back to his feet.

"If you are to be my pet, you must learn to obey," Yanis sneered. "Now stay _down_!" she snapped, punching him in the face as he tried to stand. He made the effort again, but it was weaker this time. She let him get to his feet before fixing him with her gaze. "Kneel!" she commanded.

For a moment, it looked as though the human would resist again, but then he dropped like a stone. For a moment, Yanis felt a surge of triumph, but then something hard and heavy slammed into her back. The man threw himself at her lower legs and she tumbled headfirst over him. The sword fell from her hand and thumped softly into the carpet.

*

Apart from having six wheels, the Shay vehicles were a lot like the Falcon FAV. It had a lightweight armoured skin, a gun on the roof, six seats and a weapons rack in the trunk. Alexa stowed the plasma casters while Colonel Ferretti strapped himself into the driving seat; Pearson took the cupola seat and gave Ferretti a quick run down of the driving controls, even as he activated the mounted weapon.

"There isn't one in left-hand drive?" Ferretti asked.

"Sorry, Sir. Now, what you've got is a dual control system," Pearson explained. The lever on your left controls the throttle; the one on the right is your steering."

"The steering goes forward and back?" Ferretti asked.

"'Fraid so. Forward is left, back is right. The white button on the throttle lever seems to be some kind of boost; I'd say don't meddle with it, but I know I'd be wasting my breath. Ignition is controlled by the stud in the centre of the dash. You'll get a heads-up display with speed, mileage and so-on, but it'll all be in Shay. The rest of the controls are in front of the passenger seat, including navigation and forward weapons. That's you, Lieutenant," he added, as Alexa climbed aboard.

Alexa busied herself with her seat harness; she had experienced Colonel Ferretti's driving before. "Who are you calling forward?" she asked.

"Just don't touch anything white," Pearson advised. "The plasma gun on the roof looks okay, but I wouldn't want to speak for the rocket launchers not blowing us all to hell if you try to fire them."

"Rocket launchers?" Ferretti asked. "Man, I so got to get me one of these."

"We'll try and remember that at Christmas," Pearson promised. "Lieutenant Rasputin; the green buttons on your left control the doors."

"Right." Alexa touched the controls and the doors slid forward. Just as they clunked into place, a bright flare smeared across the small window as a plasma blast struck the armour.

"I think they've noticed us at last," Pearson said.

"No kidding. Centre button?" Ferretti asked, rhetorically. He reached out and hit the ignition; the engine came to life with a low hum that built steadily into a throaty roar.

Pearson worked his controls. The plasma gun swivelled around and spat ionised gas at the Jaffa. "Red switch, Ma'am," he advised. Far right of your console.

Alexa obeyed and the doors began to open. When they were halfway up, Ferretti gunned the engine.

"Sir, the cannon!" Pearson protested, but Ferretti had judged the timing perfectly and the plasma gun just slipped under the door.

Alexa flipped the switch back; she looked back and saw the door descending.

"Good thinking," Ferretti said, approvingly.

Alexa grinned in spite of herself. "Thank you, Sir."

*

 

Yanis regained her feet swiftly and turned to face her enemies. They were hardly an imposing sight. A battered, unarmed male and a weary female with the remains of a chair in her hands and a dribble of vomit on her chin.

"We only want to leave, Yanis," Roberts said. "You do not have to die."

"I have the advantage in strength, speed and mental power," Yanis scoffed. To prove her point, she threw a suppressing blast at Roberts' mind.

"Your mental powers are broken," Roberts told her. "I can barely even feel your influence now."

"I am still the stronger." Yanis lunged forward, knocking Merlyn aside and grasping Roberts by the throat. "What do you have to match me."

"Friends," Roberts croaked. He threw a punch at Yanis' chest; his fist crunched uselessly against her iron-hard breastbone.

Yanis laughed at this gesture of defiance.

"Inventive friends," Roberts added. The wrist-piece of his Omega suit ruptured with a sharp pop.

Yanis released Roberts and staggered back. "Impossible," she insisted, weakly.

"Sloppy security," Roberts replied; he did not sound much stronger.

Yanis collapsed, blood oozing from her chest. Roberts turned his back on her and went to help Merlyn up. She waved away his offer of assistance; it was clear that he was still in a worse state than she was.

"What happened to Yanis?" she asked.

"Anya's parting gift," Roberts replied. "The wrist-mounted stake thrower."

"Good old Anya," Merlyn said. "Can you walk?"

"Of course."

"Then let's go. I think this ship is trying to take off." She shook her head. "I just hope there's somewhere for us to go."

*

It had taken Ferretti two hours to climb up to the level of the main cavern of the Shay outpost; it took two minutes to reach the Temple in the Shay ‘jeep'. He succumbed to temptation as they hit the last ridge on the hillside and mashed down the white button. He was slammed back into his seat by a sudden burst of acceleration and the jeep sprang off the ridge, hanging in clear air for several seconds before jolting back to Earth. The suspension of the six-wheeled chassis bounced once, and then stiffened to absorb the shock of landing.

"Woo-hoo!" Ferretti exclaimed.

"Great," Pearson groaned. "All we need now is an air horn that plays Dixie."

"Stop grumbling, Sergeant," Ferretti scoffed. "Two Jaffa at the gate; can you take the door down as well?"

"I'll try." Pearson worked the weapon controls and the cannon spat plasma fire at the Jaffa guards and at the gate of the main Goa'uld building. The Jaffa died, but the door barely shuddered.

"Good door."

"That building is a spaceship, Sir," Pearson explained. "It'll take a lot more plasma fire than this little cannon can muster."

Alexa pressed some of the white switches on her control panel.

"Ah...Lieutenant?" Pearson warned.

"Worth a try, isn't it?" Alexa asked, addressing Ferretti as much as Pearson.

Ferretti shrugged. "Who wants to live forever?"

Pearson raised his hand, but his seat was somewhat above and behind the two officers and they did not see him. Alexa gave a wild grin and stabbed her thumb down on the firing stud. The jeep shook and jumped backwards as two rockets kicked off from the sides of the hood; they flew a short distance, trailing silvery smoke, then their tails flashed brilliantly and they sped to the gates. They exploded in a flare of harsh, white light which would have been blinding, if the windshield had not darkened without prompting.

Smoke billowed up. When it cleared, the doors stood agape, twisted and broken.

" _Nice_!" Ferretti declared.

The jeep rolled cautiously forward, nuzzling aside the broken doors. Pearson fired an occasional blast of plasma to keep the guards at bay.

"This passage won't be wide enough for us for long," Pearson warned.

"Good thing this thing has a reverse gear, then."

*

The klaxons blared as Roberts and Merlyn made their stumbling way through the ship. They were leaning on each other, barely able to stand. A voice spoke in Goa'uld, measured tones at odds with the sense of panic that filled the air.

"Final checks?" Roberts asked. "How long is that? Five minutes to take off?"

"Something like..."

A blast rocked the ship; now the announcing voice _was_ discomfited.

" _Outer hull breached. Inner hull will be secured; fall back to inner seal bulkheads._ "

"Great," Roberts groaned.

Merlyn sighed. "Well, if I know the Goa'uld, they won't give the crew very long to get back before they lock them out. Let's try this way."

They hurried along the corridor and soon emerged into daylight, but their relief was short-lived. They were standing in the courtyard where they had been brought on arrival, but metal shutters were sliding closed above the open square.

"That arch there," Roberts said, pointing at an opening that was rapidly being sealed by another shutter. "That must be where they brought us in; it's a straight line to the main doors."

"Kalshek'tak!" Merlyn called out.

The two officers stood as best they could on their own two feet. With some difficulty, Roberts raised Yanis' two-handed sword and Merlyn hefted a chair leg; not much against the three kalshek'tak who pushed through the closing door.

"You're in a better state than I am," Roberts said. "I'll take them on; you make a run past."

"I'm not up to running," Merlyn assured him.

They stood ready, but the kalshek'tak ran past them, screaming: " _Dhampiri! Dhampiri!_ "

"Huh?" Merlyn asked.

"The door!"

They broke into a slow, painful, shuffling run, but there was no chance of reaching the bulkhead before it sealed. "Maybe we can unlock it," Merlyn suggested, without much hope. She and Roberts both knew that there would be no chance of releasing a pressure bulkhead during lift-off. They moved to the side of the arch and Roberts levered off the main panel with his sword.

"We really need Pearson for this," Roberts sighed. "Do you have _any_ tools at all?"

"Not to speak of," Merlyn replied. She laid a hand on Roberts' shoulder. "We did our best, Roberts, and we've caused a lot of trouble."

"Damnit!" Roberts drove the sword deep into the controls.

"Lieutenant!" Merlyn snapped, angrily.

Roberts nodded his head, slowly. "I'm sorry, Ma'am. I just hate losing." He pulled the sword free of the circuitry. "If they catch us..." he began. "I can't put myself past a sarcophagus, but I can make sure you don't come back," he offered.

"That's very sweet," Merlyn told him, "but no. I put myself in the hands of the Lord."

With a colossal boom, the bulkhead door ripped open.

Roberts laughed. "Hanging around you, a guy could get religion," he told Merlyn.

"I like to think so," she replied.

With a roar of turbines, a black, six-wheeled jeep burst through the broken door and skidded to a halt, facing the door.

"Looks like the Colonel did better than us," Roberts noted.

The jeep rolled forward and stopped beside the two officers. The door on the nearside slid open.

"Need a lift?" Ferretti asked.

The ship began to shake as the engines fired. Normally there would not be so much vibration, but with the damage the yacht had suffered, the inertial dampeners were strained beyond endurance.

" _Inner hull breached,_ " the PA warned. " _Emergency force fields will activate in ten seconds_."

Roberts and Merlyn piled in as quickly as they could. "We have to move fast. We've got nine seconds before they force-seal the hull," Merlyn warned.

"Please, don't encourage him," Pearson groaned.

"Buckle up then," Ferretti instructed. He gave his officers mere moments to do so, then he slammed the throttle forward.

"Sir," Alexa said, as the vehicle shot along the corridor. She touched a control on her panel. "You might like to know that the ship is no longer on the ground."

Ferretti nodded. "Gotcha," he replied, and he pushed the boost button again.

The jeep shot out the side of the yacht like a torpedo and dropped almost thirty feet to the ground. Incredibly, the team were not smashed to pieces and incinerated in a ball of twisted, burning metal. Once more the suspension took the impact, at first soft, then hardening to cushion the landing.

"I love this thing!" Ferretti declared, but at that moment the engine died. Repeated presses of the ignition switch did nothing to reinvigorate the jeep.

"I think it took the fall for us," Pearson said.

"No greater love hath one car..." Roberts quipped.

"I don't suppose we've got time..." Ferretti began.

"Sir," Merlyn interrupted, "we have to go. The Scourge are awake on this world."

"Not a problem," Ferretti assured her, "but you're right. Okay; everyone out. Rasputin, Pearson; help Lloyd and Roberts. Back to the Gate; double-time." As they disembarked, he stopped to pat the wrecked jeep on the hood. "That'll do, girl," he assured it. "That'll do."

*

On board her crippled yacht, Djanka watched as a ball of blue-white fire erupted from the temple pit, consuming all that she had sought to possess. Once more, these Tau'ri insects had denied her those weapons which were hers by right as the heir of Svarog and Czernobog and without which she could never be a true power in the galaxy.

"Set a course for Nign," she ordered. "Maximum speed."

"My Queen," the pilot reported, "the vessel is too badly damaged to survive passage through a hyperspace window."

With a frustrated cry, Djanka snatched a staff weapon from one of her guards and shot the pilot dead. She rounded on the co-pilot. "Signal our nearest ha'tak vessel to come for us," she growled.

"Yes, My Queen," the man replied, quaking.

"My Queen."

Djanka turned to face Baphomet; the big Jaffa wore an angry scowl. "What ails you, my faithful one?" she asked.

"The kalshek'tak," Baphomet replied. "They are in disarray. Their powers are running wild and their fear is _infecting_ my Jaffa."

"Their fear?" Djanka hissed. "Fear of what?"

"They speak of _dhampiri_ ," Baphomet replied, dismissively.

Djanka suppressed a shudder.

"They claim that the vehicle stolen from the outpost must have been manned by _dhampiri_ warriors," Baphomet went on. "I was almost successful in assuring them that the _dhampiri_ are a dead race, but then they found your daughter's body."

Djanka's pale face grew whiter still. "My daughter's..." She sent out her psychic probes, feeling through the tatters of the gestalt, but there was no sign of Yanis. "Show me."

Baphomet signalled and four Jaffa entered, bearing in state the body of Yanis, daughter of Djanka. She was gone forever, her kalshek'tak host beyond the power of a sarcophagus to restore from death. Another child lost, another supporting strand of her web of control over the kalshek'tak severed.

The killing wound was clear; a single stake, driven through her heart. Djanka reached out and touched the protruding end of the metal shaft. " _Dhampiri_ ," she whispered.

"My Queen?" Baphomet asked, concerned.

Djanka turned from him, tipped her head back and roared in anger and frustration. "Revenge!" she screamed. "I will have my _revenge_!"

*

_Stargate Command_

_Earth_

After another five-day decontamination break at the Animal House, SG-7 returned to Earth, battered and bloodied, but strangely triumphant. The disruptor bombs had proven an unqualified success and another Scourge pit had been both cleansed _and_ denied to Djanka. Moreover, Merlyn had acquired new information from Djanka's notes, which she was happy to expound on at the debriefing.

"It seems that once, after the Ancients had left the Milky Way and the Nox had withdrawn to their homeworld, but before the Asgard had established a permanent presence here, there were three great powers in the galaxy," she explained. "These powers were ideologically opposed in every conceivable way. One of these was the Empire of the Goa'uld, established under Asar; the Goa'uld proclaimed themselves as gods, either replacing or usurping local religious structures as they deemed fit. This is the only one of the three to remain a viable power block today."

"Only just," General O'Neill interjected.

"Quite," Merlyn agreed. "However, the second group was the Dragrsrech; the Holy Empire of the Dragr, as the kalshek'tak call themselves. The Dragr were fanatics, worshipping a single deity and intent on subduing all of creation to its glory; to them, the Goa'uld were the ultimate blasphemers. Like the Goa'uld, however, they were a fragmented race; many different clans vied for political, religious and military power, preventing the race from ever truly uniting; their Emperor was the elected leader of a council of clan chiefs, but the alliance was always shaky."

"Sounds like the UN," Ferretti noted.

This time, Merlyn did not even falter in her stride at the interruption: "The Dragr and the Goa'uld were evenly matched, but the third group were different. They controlled less territory directly and their forces were smaller, but their race acted as one and no single clan or System Lord could oppose them. They were the Shay."

General O'Neill looked surprised. "I thought that the Shay only set out to massacre the Goa'uld after an attack on their homeworld?"

"So we believed," Merlyn agreed, "but it seems this is not the case. These three powers fought for millennia, until at last one cunning System Lord hit upon the idea of getting the other two groups to wipe each other out. Using captured ships, he escalated hostilities until both the Dragr and the Shay were exhausted, then he struck and all-but wiped them out. Both races were pushed back to their homeworlds and the Goa'uld were unchallenged until the Asgard arrived on the scene. It was only millennia later that the Shay were stirred up again and almost defeated the unprepared Goa'uld before a natural disaster destroyed their world."

"So now the Goa'uld fear the Shay, and so do the kalshek'tak?" O'Neill asked.

"So it seems."

"One other point, Captain," O'Neill said. "According to the report, _you_ were the one who roused The Scourge. Care to explain?"

"Yes, Sir," Merlyn replied. "I could see no other way of keeping Djanka from gaining all of our knowledge of The Scourge. I am certain that we know more than she does, just as I am certain that it would be a disaster ten times worse than a major Scourge uprising for her to have control of their weapons."

"Agreed," O'Neill acknowledged, but what I really wanted to know was how you did it?"

"Oh." Merlyn blushed. "It was easy enough. The sources which contain the binding sp...formula which I have previously used to suppress Scourge nanites also contained formulae for raising them. I just used those to break through the gestalt. It also helped that Djanka had drawn away all of her power to strike at Roberts."

O'Neill sighed and closed the mission file. "Alright," he sighed. "Well, this is all getting too weird for me, so I'll say a tentative well done and leave the rest to your discretion. Lloyd and Roberts are on another ten days medical leave. The rest of you take some time to get your heads together; you all look as though you need it. Dismissed."

*

Merlyn caught up with Roberts in the elevator. It was strange to see him in civilian clothes.

"Heading home?" she asked.

"My apartment," he replied, "not Boston. You?"

"Much the same," Merlyn agreed. "Apparently my car has a flat," she said apropos of nothing. "I never use it at home and I'm in no fit state to be fixing a spare. Give a girl a ride home?"

"Sure," he replied.

 

Roberts pulled up outside Merlyn's house, a small bungalow in the military suburbs of Colorado Springs, not far from the Mountain.

"You're not your usual self tonight," Merlyn observed.

"Got a lot on my mind," Roberts replied.

"Tell me about it."

Roberts managed a weary smile. "Goodnight, Merlyn," he said.

"No, I mean it," she insisted. "Come inside and tell me about it."

"Captain..."

"I could make it an order, Lieutenant," she reminded him, gently. "Come on. I'll make us a coffee."

Obediently, Roberts turned off the engine. "You don't even know that that offer requires clarification, do you?"

"What offer?"

"Coffee."

"Oh. I have a basic Colombian roast and a sort of cinnamony thing," she expanded.

"Sweet."

 

Merlyn's home was Spartan and alarmingly neat. The furniture was stylish, but ultimately functional. She did possess a television, but it was small and did not appear to receive more than a dozen or so channels. Roberts sat down on a firmly-sprung couch and surveyed the lounge while Merlyn made coffee.

"What do you think?" Merlyn asked. She set a tray, bearing two mugs and a cafetière, on the table.

"It looks like the common room in a convent," Roberts admitted; Merlyn was not a woman who had much time for hollow platitudes.

"I find it rather homey," Merlyn agreed. "So; you want to tell me what's bothering you?"

"No."

"Rhetorical question, Roberts."

"I know."

There was a pause which stretched on until Merlyn poured the coffee.

"You weren't the only one who went through the wringer, Roberts," Merlyn reminded him.

"I know," Roberts replied, taking a mournful sip of his coffee. "I should have been trying to help you, Captain; instead I gave up. I was terrified; helpless. She offered to let me walk out and I couldn't."

"She held you with her mind," Merlyn reminded him. "You're not weak just because you couldn't fight it; Djanka was the focus of a massive mental gestalt and..."

"Not Djanka; Yanis. She wasn't as powerful, but she managed to get inside my head. She knew what could weaken my resolve, how to cut away at my strength. I can live with getting beaten up, but being unable to fight back is more than I can stand; she knew that, better than Djanka did." His knuckles whitened around his coffee cup. "She made me vulnerable," he confessed.

"But you beat her," Merlyn reminded him. "You killed her and I'm glad to say that you still have your eyes."

"My...eyes?"

"Djanka had designs on them," Merlyn explained. "She frightened me. Even for a Goa'uld, she was terrifyingly sure of herself."

"No she wasn't," Roberts assured her with a dry chuckle.

"Roberts?"

Roberts' blue eyes sparkled with mirth. "Didn't you notice that she didn't look like a kalshek'tak?" he asked.

"Well, she did seem rather...curvier," Merlyn admitted.

"Implants," Roberts announced.

"Implants?" Merlyn laughed out loud. "You're kidding, right?"

Roberts shook his head. "Trust me; I've seen plenty of cosmetic surgery and those curves were not natural. Now, no-one has that kind of surgery if they're happy with the way they are. I'd say that the shift to kalshek'tak body, despite all its strength and mental power, had left Djanka – who was used to having men worship her beauty – feeling..."

"Vulnerable?" Merlyn suggested.

Roberts gave a soft laugh, but then became sombre again. "There is something else," he said.

"Yes?"

"I _was_ able, in the end, to fight off Djanka's influence for a while, but I don't know how. I think it was something inside me, but that means...it means I don't know who I am. I'm not even sure _what_ I am. All I know is that I don't quite feel human."

"Nor do I sometimes. But I know that you're a good man, Lieutenant Roberts," Merlyn said, earnestly. "Don't let yourself forget that. You fought Yanis in the end and you won, _and_ you came for me when you could have just run."

"Not that you needed me so much," he said.

"You don't have to need saving for it to be nice to know someone's there to do it," Merlyn assured him. "You're the strongest of us," she told him.

"Not in all ways," he assured her. "Thank you, Merlyn," he added. "It's not easy to talk about something like this, but it...it does help."

"Of course it does," Merlyn replied. "If I understand anything, it's the need for absolution."

"It's not absolution that I want," Roberts assured her.

"Then what?"

"Understanding."

Roberts finished his coffee and left. Merlyn collected the mugs, washed up, and then went to bed. Before allowing herself to sleep, she knelt beside her bed and folded her hands together. When her usual nightly prayers were done, she offered up a prayer for her friend, who seemed so lost.


End file.
